Meditative Prose
Monday, 23 June 2008
The art of writing: staying focused on that mode of thought, resisting the temptation to find any conceivable distraction. The internet is the worst. I have a billion buttons I could click to show me something new, anything at all, anything to unfocus my mind because it is easier that way. The way to write is to let yourself fall into the page (or the screen, in my case) and stay there exploring the territory. Forget about the world outside. For our purposes, it does not exist. The only landscape is the stark whiteness of the blank screen, and by your words you choose how to fill it. The better you do your job, the more interesting — more complex, unpredictable, & lucid — the environment becomes. The best writers (& artists, & musicians, among others) are those who are able to forget themselves for a while.
I went to college to learn how to write, but they never offered a course in productivity. Unfortunately, that is one of those things I am having to figure out on my own. Time-management, organization, prioritization, discipline: these things are the hardest for me, but it is precisely these things that I’ll need to become the person I want to be.
So this is my daily work: to remain aware of my goals without obsessing, to remain aware of my flaws without despairing, and steadily and patiently to strive. This week has been a good one.
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Photo by Saveena
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.
– Henry Thoreau
When I eat lunch during the week, I like to get out of the bookstore and away from people. Yesterday I was sitting in one of my favorite spots on campus, a long bench shaded by two big red pines, and I heard an incredible bird. It would sing one type of song, repeat it once or twice, then sing something completely different — again and again, never duplicating any one type of song. One song sounded like a phone ringing! I spotted the bird about 100 feet away at the top of a tall tree, but couldn’t get a good look at it. I didn’t have my field guide with me, but I wanted to note its markings and see if I could identify it later. Several times I saw the bird fly away and land on another high perch, but even with my glasses my eyes are bad, and I could only tell that it was vaguely darkish with a white belly. I resigned myself to not knowing what it was and went back to twirling my spaghetti.
A few minutes later, it flew right by my head and landed on a handrail about ten feet away. For at least twenty seconds, it looked around without singing and rotated on the handrail so I could see it from every angle — the black bars on its wings and the white outer feathers of its long tail — and then took off for good. I can’t help but feel like it noticed my interest and decided to display itself to me once before it left. I went back to work feeling blessed. When I got home I identified the bird as a northern mockingbird — probably a common sight to the experienced birder, but a real treat for me.
This entry is dedicated to Will and Nick, who drove up from Pennsylvania to visit Sarah and me a few weeks ago. That one short weekend put a lot of things in perspective for me.
