sunday night rambling
Sunday night, sudden silence after much noise--children yelling and laughing, adults bustling, balloons exhaling, dishes clinking, footsteps, singing, music, wind, rain, helping verbs (all of them, in order!) recitation, last song before sleep. Now I hear only the tapping of keys and Charley as he angles for a better position in his pineapple-box bed. Martin pulls a piece of paper from a stack: whish. And always, the tap, tap, tapping that makes the rhythm of our daily work, the sound that indicates stories written, syllabuses compiled, words sent to people we love.
These last few days have been a return to writing for me and thus a return to a quiet center, wrapped in the tapping of keys, as I meet words. Sometimes the words come to me like friends, sit down with me at a table, pass a dish of olive oil redolent with fresh spices. Sometimes the words and the images they carry must be wrenched and wrestled and begged before they will stay, and sometimes, on a very good occasion, the words make a sacred space that I may enter, if I am silent enough.
Someone recently compared writing to meditation, and though I wish that comparison were more true, writing is not an emptying, but a filling. Sometimes I feel as if I am batting at words with a tennis racket; often I am off on some adventure, bungling my way through, and sometimes just one sentence is like teasing a splinter out of a fingernail--painful but satisfying. The fact writing was given to me is ironic, since solitude has been something I fought for many years (and in a way, I don't feel alone when I write). Because I've been suspicious of solitude, I have always been lousy at mediation. I suppose I meditate best when I silence myself and watch the world, expecting nothing in particular in return, but receive succor. Or perhaps walking by myself is like that, when I walk to the park under the towering cedars and the rain mists the street and the park and the garden.
And I suppose writing can be like meditation in that, on a really good day, it centers me. But it is truly more like a conversation, and sometimes a very loud one, and sometimes one with unexpected voices, and in that way it is cacophonous. And when it is over, sometimes my head is in such a fog that I can barely articulate sentences out loud to people when life suddenly necessitates I show up for an appointment or pick up a child or answer the telephone, or when the week ends and Saturday arrives, and everyone is suddenly at home all day again.
If you had walked into our house yesterday, you would have found Beatrix curled up in a tent in the living room, listening to some rock/punk band on the stereo; Martin in the kitchen, helping Elspeth chop tomatoes as Frank Sinatra crooned on the other stereo; a big puzzle 3/4 finished on the kitchen table; our paltry counters covered with two-dozen cookies cooling and vestiges of Elspeth's cooking project (bits of green pepper and garlic and salt and olive oil); me at the sink, washing up mixing bowls; Merry outside practicing flute (high, piping barks) and then, Beatrix also practicing recorder (lower, loud pipes), and Charley amid the chaos, napping in his pineapple-box. For those of you who have not visited us yet in our wee red house, all this activity was taking place inside of approximately 300 square feet.
And now you know that why actually being able to hear the tap-tap-tap of computer keys is such a solace.
(Now Charley chomps in his sleep and Martin chuckles a bit and I am reminded of Beatrix, whom, when Martin scooped her out of bed at midnight the other night for her habitual trip the the bathroom, smacked her lips and said in an appreciative way, "YUMMY!" Then Martin plopped her on the toilet and she was still enjoying whatever delicacy her dream had offered her, because she smiled a groggy, silly smile, and murmured, "Imm. That's my favorite." Makes me wish I could taste in my dreams. )
Speaking of which, I'm off for the evening. Martin rustles on through folders, intent on readying himself for the start of classes tomorrow. I have other promises to keep, but tonight I do not have miles to go before I sleep, so I shall bid you all a sweet goodnight and send you courage for the new week. . .and a hope for just enough silence to feed your souls.
These last few days have been a return to writing for me and thus a return to a quiet center, wrapped in the tapping of keys, as I meet words. Sometimes the words come to me like friends, sit down with me at a table, pass a dish of olive oil redolent with fresh spices. Sometimes the words and the images they carry must be wrenched and wrestled and begged before they will stay, and sometimes, on a very good occasion, the words make a sacred space that I may enter, if I am silent enough.
Someone recently compared writing to meditation, and though I wish that comparison were more true, writing is not an emptying, but a filling. Sometimes I feel as if I am batting at words with a tennis racket; often I am off on some adventure, bungling my way through, and sometimes just one sentence is like teasing a splinter out of a fingernail--painful but satisfying. The fact writing was given to me is ironic, since solitude has been something I fought for many years (and in a way, I don't feel alone when I write). Because I've been suspicious of solitude, I have always been lousy at mediation. I suppose I meditate best when I silence myself and watch the world, expecting nothing in particular in return, but receive succor. Or perhaps walking by myself is like that, when I walk to the park under the towering cedars and the rain mists the street and the park and the garden.
And I suppose writing can be like meditation in that, on a really good day, it centers me. But it is truly more like a conversation, and sometimes a very loud one, and sometimes one with unexpected voices, and in that way it is cacophonous. And when it is over, sometimes my head is in such a fog that I can barely articulate sentences out loud to people when life suddenly necessitates I show up for an appointment or pick up a child or answer the telephone, or when the week ends and Saturday arrives, and everyone is suddenly at home all day again.
If you had walked into our house yesterday, you would have found Beatrix curled up in a tent in the living room, listening to some rock/punk band on the stereo; Martin in the kitchen, helping Elspeth chop tomatoes as Frank Sinatra crooned on the other stereo; a big puzzle 3/4 finished on the kitchen table; our paltry counters covered with two-dozen cookies cooling and vestiges of Elspeth's cooking project (bits of green pepper and garlic and salt and olive oil); me at the sink, washing up mixing bowls; Merry outside practicing flute (high, piping barks) and then, Beatrix also practicing recorder (lower, loud pipes), and Charley amid the chaos, napping in his pineapple-box. For those of you who have not visited us yet in our wee red house, all this activity was taking place inside of approximately 300 square feet.
And now you know that why actually being able to hear the tap-tap-tap of computer keys is such a solace.
(Now Charley chomps in his sleep and Martin chuckles a bit and I am reminded of Beatrix, whom, when Martin scooped her out of bed at midnight the other night for her habitual trip the the bathroom, smacked her lips and said in an appreciative way, "YUMMY!" Then Martin plopped her on the toilet and she was still enjoying whatever delicacy her dream had offered her, because she smiled a groggy, silly smile, and murmured, "Imm. That's my favorite." Makes me wish I could taste in my dreams. )
Speaking of which, I'm off for the evening. Martin rustles on through folders, intent on readying himself for the start of classes tomorrow. I have other promises to keep, but tonight I do not have miles to go before I sleep, so I shall bid you all a sweet goodnight and send you courage for the new week. . .and a hope for just enough silence to feed your souls.
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