William Butler Yeats said, "All virtue is a form of acting." What does that really mean since virtue is the act of conforming to a standard of right living? What is it we turn ourselves into to write? We sit at the controls of a distant future and act as an instrument of our gift to write. We invite others in to our grandeurs of miss represented realities. How often do we write and not feel anything more than the keys bouncing back at us as we type? If we had noticed how we felt would we be writing?
As writers how lost are we to the actual world that goes on around us? We live so much in our minds that are we even a part of our lives? For me my best writing day
is when I can get into a rhythm. A rhythm that lets me lose myself in the world I am creating. Paolo Veronses said, "Given a large canvas, I enhance it as I saw fit." Isn't that what we do every time we write? There is the world and I am not happy with it. In my writing I enhance the world as I see fit. Isn't that what we call our voice?
A Zen proverb says, "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you don't understand, things are just as they are." But what writer believes that? What writer doesn't believe reality can be changed simply by writing it so?
More times than not in this writer’s life knowing the answer isn't all that satisfying. But knowing makes life and people easier to accept. I can only write of an experience I have come to terms with, accepted and let go of. I can only write in hindsight of experiences and feelings whether they are painful or joyous. In the moment I am living I am doing just that living. Writing is reflection not living.
Accepting reality is living in the moment. Writing reality is writing about circumstances we have come to accept. We may not have figured out the why or the reason, but if we are writing the experience we have come to accept the circumstances.
Writing is
the letting go part for this writer. As a writer there will be circumstances I will never come to understand. When I write about those experiences I will write the uncomfortable feelings of dis-ease. I will write what it feels like to not understand.
Sometimes I chose an experience to write trying to attain clarity about the circumstances, but clarity is not an item to attain. Clarity is a process, a way of living and with some experiences clarity won’t fix the problem. Things are in life just as they are whether I can make sense of them or not.
As a writer my job is not to write of clarity
as something attained or write of understanding as a resolution for conflict. As a writer my job is to write the experience, share how the circumstances of the experience made me feel and then let all I have written go for someone to find, to read, to identify as theirs.
In my writing I can seek to find the answer and even force an answer to ease my pain, but for some experiences there is no answer no wonderful enlightenment. My writing must always be honest it is a representation of my motives. If I am writing to ease my pain I am most likely causing someone else pain.
When I am writing I must be like water I must never write as if I were broken and I must never be convinced by anyone I am broken. I must always be able to assume many shapes when I write. I must always be able to join the world easily, to reach out and to move like water. Water is never broken.
As a writer I am most successful when I am like water. As my emotions, feelings and ideas flow I lose myself for a time, I am in concert with others, with the world, but then I stop being water and I go back to being just me. I must never fear the loss of being water. To be afraid is to not have my selfhood intact…..
Exercise #4
Lee Fuhr could only be described as a mind-made-up kind of woman. Lee and I where neighbors for a while at Columbia University our backgrounds shared a common thread a deep desire for a college education. Lee was someone who entranced me. There was a rhythm to her thoughts that coincided with the heaving of her breasts. When she spoke I breathed with her.
Our conversations more often than not emulated Lee’s understanding and compassion for her fellows. In 1934 it was more common to meet people who came from a poor family than a rich one. Lee was no exception. She spent her youth in the cotton mills of New Jersey. Her days were not filled with hours of frivolous play. Lee’s teen years were about working long hours for little pay to support her family. Although my parents were considered amongst the impoverished as Lee spoke of her past I grew to consider myself very fortunate.
The night air was biting. The quicker I walked the more the clicking of my heels on the pavement echoed within me. Lee had moved to an apartment on Amsterdam and although I was drawn to her the walks to see her were just annoying. There was a part of me that ached to be with her as she spoke, spoke of anything, spoke for hours of nothing. I ached. Since Lee had moved I wasn’t ever sure how I would be greeted when I went to see her. I was a hypocrite and we both knew it.
Time with Lee began to fill my nights and weekends, but it wasn’t alone time. I was still looking for work so searching accounted for most of my days. The rest of my time was spent with an odd little man named Patch. When I talked Patch listened. We were working in a hall, a meeting hall where people gathered to learn about communism. I could talk to Patch about being afraid of not knowing what to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t sympathize it was that I didn’t know how far sympathy would take me.
Patch would hold my hand as I talked running his index finger down the back of my hand between my fingers back and forth, back and forth until I became calm again. Whenever I was with Lee I felt like a coward, but with Patch I could figure out what I believed and he just listened as talked. Patch was kind enough to tell me he would wait to join the party until I made up my mind and then we could join together. Patch volunteered to give me courage, but time went on and I joined the Party alone. Patch lost his courage.
As writers how lost are we to the actual world that goes on around us? We live so much in our minds that are we even a part of our lives? For me my best writing day
is when I can get into a rhythm. A rhythm that lets me lose myself in the world I am creating. Paolo Veronses said, "Given a large canvas, I enhance it as I saw fit." Isn't that what we do every time we write? There is the world and I am not happy with it. In my writing I enhance the world as I see fit. Isn't that what we call our voice? A Zen proverb says, "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you don't understand, things are just as they are." But what writer believes that? What writer doesn't believe reality can be changed simply by writing it so?
More times than not in this writer’s life knowing the answer isn't all that satisfying. But knowing makes life and people easier to accept. I can only write of an experience I have come to terms with, accepted and let go of. I can only write in hindsight of experiences and feelings whether they are painful or joyous. In the moment I am living I am doing just that living. Writing is reflection not living.
Accepting reality is living in the moment. Writing reality is writing about circumstances we have come to accept. We may not have figured out the why or the reason, but if we are writing the experience we have come to accept the circumstances.
Writing is
the letting go part for this writer. As a writer there will be circumstances I will never come to understand. When I write about those experiences I will write the uncomfortable feelings of dis-ease. I will write what it feels like to not understand. Sometimes I chose an experience to write trying to attain clarity about the circumstances, but clarity is not an item to attain. Clarity is a process, a way of living and with some experiences clarity won’t fix the problem. Things are in life just as they are whether I can make sense of them or not.
As a writer my job is not to write of clarity
as something attained or write of understanding as a resolution for conflict. As a writer my job is to write the experience, share how the circumstances of the experience made me feel and then let all I have written go for someone to find, to read, to identify as theirs. In my writing I can seek to find the answer and even force an answer to ease my pain, but for some experiences there is no answer no wonderful enlightenment. My writing must always be honest it is a representation of my motives. If I am writing to ease my pain I am most likely causing someone else pain.
When I am writing I must be like water I must never write as if I were broken and I must never be convinced by anyone I am broken. I must always be able to assume many shapes when I write. I must always be able to join the world easily, to reach out and to move like water. Water is never broken.
As a writer I am most successful when I am like water. As my emotions, feelings and ideas flow I lose myself for a time, I am in concert with others, with the world, but then I stop being water and I go back to being just me. I must never fear the loss of being water. To be afraid is to not have my selfhood intact…..
Exercise #4
Lee Fuhr could only be described as a mind-made-up kind of woman. Lee and I where neighbors for a while at Columbia University our backgrounds shared a common thread a deep desire for a college education. Lee was someone who entranced me. There was a rhythm to her thoughts that coincided with the heaving of her breasts. When she spoke I breathed with her.
Our conversations more often than not emulated Lee’s understanding and compassion for her fellows. In 1934 it was more common to meet people who came from a poor family than a rich one. Lee was no exception. She spent her youth in the cotton mills of New Jersey. Her days were not filled with hours of frivolous play. Lee’s teen years were about working long hours for little pay to support her family. Although my parents were considered amongst the impoverished as Lee spoke of her past I grew to consider myself very fortunate.
The night air was biting. The quicker I walked the more the clicking of my heels on the pavement echoed within me. Lee had moved to an apartment on Amsterdam and although I was drawn to her the walks to see her were just annoying. There was a part of me that ached to be with her as she spoke, spoke of anything, spoke for hours of nothing. I ached. Since Lee had moved I wasn’t ever sure how I would be greeted when I went to see her. I was a hypocrite and we both knew it.
Time with Lee began to fill my nights and weekends, but it wasn’t alone time. I was still looking for work so searching accounted for most of my days. The rest of my time was spent with an odd little man named Patch. When I talked Patch listened. We were working in a hall, a meeting hall where people gathered to learn about communism. I could talk to Patch about being afraid of not knowing what to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t sympathize it was that I didn’t know how far sympathy would take me.
Patch would hold my hand as I talked running his index finger down the back of my hand between my fingers back and forth, back and forth until I became calm again. Whenever I was with Lee I felt like a coward, but with Patch I could figure out what I believed and he just listened as talked. Patch was kind enough to tell me he would wait to join the party until I made up my mind and then we could join together. Patch volunteered to give me courage, but time went on and I joined the Party alone. Patch lost his courage.
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