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A Day, a Diary

A Day, a Diary

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I found an old journal in the back room of my parents’ old house, my grandfather Cassidy’s diary from 1940. This is my father’s father, who I never knew; he died before I was born. He was a Nazarene preacher, and much of this diary records his prayer habits and the texts he preached from.

On this day, 78 years ago, the tent was in or near Clinton, Illinois, and his sermon came from 2 Samuel 25-28:

“I pray you, forgive the trespass of your handmaid: for the Lord will certainly make my lord an enduring house; because my lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil has not been found in you all your days.”

Many days began with reading and praying. There were walks, helping friends cut wood, marveling at the beauty of the day.

My grandfather followed his calling even though his family, my father then a young man, were far away. I’m not sure what they lived on, how they made it. But somehow, they did.

The world is a different place now, but the pages in this diary are as crisp and clear as the day he wrote them. At the bottom of each page, a quotation. This one is from Emerson: “Give me insight into today, and you may have the antique and future worlds.”

Roses and Parakeets

Roses and Parakeets

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Today I have only four hours of Winrock work ahead of me then an afternoon and three whole days off. I’m wondering what it would be like to have unlimited time and space. Frightening at first, I imagine, but maybe not. It would be stepping off the carousel into some sort of other time-space continuum with only my own to-do list to guide me.

Here’s the thing, though. I have a hefty internal to-do list. It’s a vague one, needing time and energy to flesh out, and the thought of being face-to-face with it is mildly terrifying.

But still, there are mornings like this, full of blooming roses and chirping parakeets, when I’d like nothing better than to chuck it all and just … be …. free …

Why She Writes

Why She Writes

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Last night I watched the documentary “The Center Does Not Hold,” about the writer Joan Didion. It chronicled Didion’s chronicles of crazy episodes in our nation’s history: Haight-Ashbury, Charles Manson’s murder of Sharon Tate and others, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. But mostly the film is about Joan Didion’s thinking on these things.

A Wikipedia article about Didion mentions a 1980 essay by Barbara Grizutti Harrison, who wrote that Didion is a “neurasthenic Cher” whose subject is always herself. Apparently, that article rankled Didion for decades. Of course, the essayist’s subject is always herself.
Almost none of us writing essays will achieve Didion’s fame, but we can all do what she did, which she explained in her essay “Why I Write”: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
(In Didion’s honor, a western landscape.)
Two Years

Two Years

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I started at Winrock two years ago today. It may have seemed an odd choice given my previous jobs in print journalism. But it’s the words that matter, I decided, not the medium in which they’re read. As for the autonomy of my reporting, I’ve decided that very few of us can say we’re not beholden to someone or something, whether it be editors, advertisers or management.

Any job change requires soul searching, asking what really matters. And what matters for me is the work itself, the pace and the breadth of it, what it stands for. This organization has its heart in the right place. I believe in its goals and mission.

More than that, this work is perfect for the easily bored. At Winrock I have a huge canvas on which to paint. I’ve interviewed old and young, farmers and bank executives, solar technicians and victims of human trafficking. I write stories and talking points, ad copy and op-eds.

I usually write without byline and most of my output ends up online. But in the end, it’s the stories that matter — that, and the writing of them.

Fernweh and Heimweh

Fernweh and Heimweh

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Homesickness is when you long for the place you know best of all. But what about its opposite? Wanting to venture to a place you’ve never been? It’s a feeling deeper than wanderlust, stronger than attachment. Until the other day, I didn’t know it has a name.

Farsickness —or “fernweh” from the German “fern” (far) and “weh” (pain) is when you yearn for a place you’ve never been, for the faraway. I heard about it on the radio, and a quick Google search shows me the word has been out there for a while. There are “Fernweh” t-shirts and “Farsickness” travel blogs.

Digging a little deeper I learn that the word “homesick” also entered our language from the German — “heimweh.” It comes from a Swiss dialect and can also mean longing for the mountains. Ah, I think, just like Heidi. Remember when she’s sent to Frankfurt and entertains Clara but all she wants is to go back and live with her grandfather on the mountain?

To have “fernweh” we need “heimweh.” The familiar propels us to the faraway — then brings us home again.

Haiku Day + One

Haiku Day + One

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Late Tuesday I learned

The day’s syllabic net worth,
April 17th.
This year’s Haiku Day
Was almost done when a text
Knocked me flat with joy:
“Metal birds stirring
Orange claws puncture the night sky
Sunrise at Reagan.”
Thank you, Ms. Abo,
My own firstborn, Suzanne E,
Keep writing poems!
Deck Thoughts

Deck Thoughts

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It’s my first work morning on the deck since last fall. I’ve cleaned the glass-top table and brought out the old seat cushions.

Now, instead of the clickety-clack of computer keys, I hear the drone of a chain saw, distant traffic noise, small birds chittering.

There is plenty of mental effort required for the writing I do, but once outside all I see are the physical chores: tying down the climbing rose, chopping up the dead wood, preparing the garden for spring.

It’s a bit overwhelming until I remind myself of this: We’re here to labor, to try and fail, to wonder and to grow.

Digital Trail

Digital Trail

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I’m not a big Facebook user. I remember posting vacation photos on the social media site once years ago — and realizing how much control I lost when I did that. I’ve been skittish about the site ever since.

But I give away data all the time, in ways great and small. The books I order, the words I write, the tweets I tweet — all leave a digital trail.  All I can do is make it a faint one.

Privacy has been on my mind these days, what with revelations that Facebook sold user data to Cambridge Analytica. I was amused to learn that an enterprising AP photographer was able to snap a picture of the talking points that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had in front of him at yesterday’s congressional hearings.

The New York Times reports this tidbit: “Resign? Founded Facebook. My decisions. I made mistakes. Big challenge, but we’ve faced problems before, going to solve this one. Already taking action.” And, if he had been asked if Facebook should be broken up, Zuckerberg was prepared to say: “U.S. tech companies key asset for America. Breakup strengthens Chinese companies.”

 It’s a fitting irony that Zuckerberg was outed not by social media but by old-fashioned media. Long live the camera … and the pen!

(Savvy Facebook users might learn that this was my high school.)

View from a Garret

View from a Garret

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Over the weekend I stayed with friends in the city and slept in a third-floor bedroom. When I saw the slanting eaves, the bed tucked up by the two windows, I wanted to cry out with delight.

It’s not that I don’t love my own house, my own bed. It’s cozy here, and warm. I like our house and neighborhood.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t crave a garret. To be writing up there would be to channel Jo March, with her apples and her writing smock. A romantic notion? Of course!

From what I gather, the derivation of the “writer in a garret” phrase was the English writer Samuel Foote, who said that an author’s fate was to be “born in a cellar and liv[e] in a garret.” Bohemian poverty has been celebrated in literature throughout the last couple of centuries.

But it’s not the poverty I like about the garret; it’s the combination of coziness and expansiveness. And it’s the view. It’s being able to look out over rooftops and treetops. It’s perspective — something I think all writers (and all people, for that matter) need.

A Place for Everything

A Place for Everything

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Sometimes on mornings at home, in what I know is an elaborate form of procrastination, I tidy up before I begin writing. It’s part compulsion. I like to look up from the screen and see some order in the universe — even if the order is only that I moved the covered rocking chairs from in front of the deck door so they don’t block the view.

This morning while putting papers in the recycling bin and tucking a cloth bag up on a shelf where I keep shopping bags … I thought about the phrase “a place for everything and everything in its place.”
I’m a big believer in this. It’s how I keep from losing things (including my mind).

The problem with this method is that I avoid the place where much of the stuff I’m moving should actually go — and that is what we used to call the circular file, the wastebasket.

So much of my tidying is a futile attempt to stem the flow. Until I purge — really purge — my tidying up will only be of the most superficial order. But this morning, like so many others, a superficial order is all I need.

There’s a place for me, too — and it’s sitting on this couch, typing on these keys.