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Walk from One World

Walk from One World


This winter’s mild weather means it’s not too cold for a walk before dawn. I’ve taken a few of these lately, mostly brisk strolls to the train.

To walk to Metro is to walk east, toward morning. So in all of these ambles I aim toward a slight strip of red along the horizon, the earliest sign of daylight. The only folks I see are just like me, dressed in black or gray, shouldering packs and briefcases and gym bags, purposefully striding to the ribbon of track that will whisk us from one world to another.

These last few months I have come to appreciate even more the benefit of such a separation. It is good to have a place that is not home, a cool, quiet, unemotional place in which to produce solid, if unimaginative, prose. So, I move fast on these morning walks to Metro not just because I’m scared to be stirring in the darkness, but also because I’m genuinely eager to leave the turbulent, heartfelt, almost full to bursting world for a leaner, calmer one.

I have no illusions, though. My best and deepest work always comes from acknowledging and confronting the turbulent world. I walk fast in the morning, but never fast enough to leave that world completely behind.

The Paper

The Paper


It has been a while since I had to write a paper. Even though I write all the time and deadlines are my constant companion, there’s something about an academic deadline that’s different. Is it because a grade rests on the performance? Undoubtedly that has something to do with it.

Most probably, though, it harkens back to some deep primordial fear of failure. The way my stomach would somersault when the teacher (often a nun) began collecting the assignments — and I realized that I Had Left Mine At Home. It was pure terror, to be rehashed in dreams for decades to come.

And then there were those loopy all-nighters of college and late high school, typing (yes, typing — on a typewriter with White Out and correcting strips) the bibliography as the sun rose. Those nights had a rhythm and a pattern all their own: the despair of 2 a.m., the rejuvenation at 3, the near crash at 4 and the triumphant completion at 7:30, just in time for an 8 a.m. class.

I’ve learned to pace myself a bit since then. I’m mailing my paper today (fingers crossed) and it isn’t even due till tomorrow.

photo: IBM

The Nemesis

The Nemesis


For the last few weeks I’ve been getting to know an old nemesis. If you had to name this entity it would diminish its power, so I will leave the name out for now. Let me just say that it sits on my shoulder and mumbles in my ear. Don’t use that word; it won’t work. Where is the transition here? No, that isn’t it at all. When my nemesis has the upper hand I am wordless and unhappy.

Through the years I have assembled some ammunition. This blog, for instance; it flies beneath the radar screen. The nemesis lets it go. And sometimes in the morning I can work happily before the nemesis awakes. But long about midday it will set in with all its niggling, nagging power. Often I push through it. Sometimes I give up and do something else.

Looking in some writing books the other day I came across a passage that helps. It’s from The Forest for the Trees by writer, editor and agent Betsy Lerner. “I won’t say there’s no such thing as a natural talent, but after working with many authors over the years, I can offer a few observations: having natural ability doesn’t seem to make writing any easier (and sometimes makes it more difficult); having all the feeling in the world will not ensure the effective communication of feeling on the page; and finally, the degree of one’s perseverance is the best predictor of success.”

It’s that last point that I cling to most. The nemesis doesn’t like to hear it. The nemesis counts on my giving up. And so, just to spite it, I won’t.

Cul-de-Sac

Cul-de-Sac

One of the features I’ve observed through the years about the suburban landscape is the great number of cul-de-sacs. Everyone wants to live on one, I suppose. So I included them in my poem.

No longer “dead ends.”

Now they are cul-de-sacs.

“Bottom of bag,” a Catalan phrase, I learn, via French to English.

Their modern use: to calm traffic.

But what happens to traffic calmed? It bursts loose on the straightaway.

Meanwhile, the lone woman rides her bike to the circle,

round and round she goes.

She has lost count of the years.

Homework

Homework


Behind my back, the girls say, “Someone should tell Mom she doesn’t have to do all the reading.” But no one does. And it wouldn’t work anyway. I do all the reading gladly. And I take my time writing papers. I have fallen back into the old routine.

The last two times I was a student, I earned professional masters degrees. For 10 years, the classes I’ve been in have been ones I’m teaching.

So the class I’m taking now is just for fun. For intellectual re-engagement with the world. There is no need for excuses. The process is the point.

I had forgotten the ease of letting someone else do the work. Of sitting and listening, and not leading, the discussion. Of being all lit up by the ideas bouncing around my head. It’s good for a walker to have something to chew on while she treads the suburban paths. And I have more than my share these days.

Walk. Eat. Paint.

Walk. Eat. Paint.


When I was a little kid I wanted to be an archaeologist. I read books on the discovery of Troy and other landmark finds. It was the first and last time I showed much aptitude in science.

Yesterday, I fell in love with archaeology all over again. An article published yesterday in Science (and reported also in the Washington Post) described a “tool kit” found deep in a South African cave. The kit contained everything our ancient ancestors needed to paint a face or a wall and shows evidence of planned behavior and an artistic drive that emerged much earlier than previously thought. Humans used the cave 130,000 years ago!

The Washington Post headline for the story was what caught my eye. “Dawn of humanity: Walk upright. Paint.”

I like this story because it reinforces something I hope is true: That we are, and have been from the beginning, not just eating, sleeping, thinking creatures. We are also creative creatures. The artistic impulse is part of our DNA.

Truth Telling

Truth Telling


Last night in class we talked about truth in writing, how literal detail might give way to deeper observations. I made the point (and this is amazing in itself because I’m usually quiet in class discussions) that it wouldn’t matter whether E.B. White talked about three ruts or two in the path to his house in “Once More to the Lake,” what mattered were the larger points he was making about generations, the passage of time and mortality.

It would matter if White had no son, though, the professor said. And I agree. White’s essay is nonfiction. We expect most of it to be true. If there were no son, then we would doubt White’s veracity in other matters, too, and all of his observations — including his amazing, punch-in-the-gut last line — would be suspect.

Truth, then, can be a slippery thing. Until it’s not.

Typos

Typos


Yesterday was busy. I had my class and plenty of work and an errand to run at lunchtime. It wasn’t until this morning that I noticed yesterday’s post, about how we’re in no hurry for the cool, sharp weather of “all.”

Ah, the typo. Bane of our existence. There are the funny ones, like the time our magazine, Bluegrass, misspelled the name of an advertiser, Mrs. Farthing. (I’ll let you figure out which letter was missing.) That one was legendary. Even the local radio announcer gave us a hard time on that one.

The thing about typos now, though, is how easily they can be corrected. If I notice a misspelling or an inelegance in the blog, I just slip in and fix it. Online publishing, then, softens the rigidity of the written word. But removing the permanence also removes the power.

The Third Shift

The Third Shift

When I was a full-time freelance writer I wrote often for Working Mother magazine and became familiar with the theory that multiple roles are healthy for working women. The theory goes something like this: When work goes well, it inoculates us against the stress of home and family life. And when home is crazy, the office provides another avenue for achievement and satisfaction. Of course, sometimes both work and home are demanding, but that’s another story.

Last night I missed class to go to Celia’s back-to-school night. I’m glad I made the choice I did, but I missed the camaraderie of the class, missed the two hours I would have spent thinking and talking about ideas.

So after I came in, I spent a few minutes thinking about choices and the multiple roles equation (or my vastly simplified memory of it). The equation is missing a number, I think. There’s a part of me (a part of every person, I imagine) that is not about work and not about family. It is the “third shift,” that which we do for ourselves alone. And often that’s what gives, what falls behind.

For me it’s the thinking self — the reading and writing and pondering self — that has, as the children have grown older, become ever more important. This is the self that has been parched for years. Now that I’m starting to quench it, I don’t want to stop.

Willow Rill

Willow Rill


The word “rill” has been on my mind. I thought of it one day when I was walking, savored the quaintness of it, the smallness of it; how it sounds like what it is: a small brook or stream, water running quickly across a bed of rocks, mud or beaten grass. The word is linguistically kin to “rivulet” and is also close to “run,” another word for creek in southern places.

We drove past Willow Run in Emmitsburg, Maryland, over the weekend, and I was delighted to see the word in print. Not knowing why I thought about “rill” in the first place, here was a rill in real life. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

But all I could glimpse of Willow Rill was the bridge that led across it. So now I see the creek in my mind’s eye, a stream of clear water flowing beneath a curtain of green, not as raucous as a brook, slower and more meandering, slight-banked. There is a lilt to its passage through the landscape (the word “rill” is mighty close to “trill”). It sings as it courses down the mountain.