Uncle Richmond’s daughter-in-law Molly and a grandchild in the kayak he built, from scratch, on our beautiful lake. This is mental leisure.
Sometimes I don’t have anything to say. The disintegration of our rules, our laws, our country’s reputation feels crushing. Does it take mental leisure to be creative? Maybe there needs to be something other than this pressing on the temples, this fear of what’s next. The fear that, on paper, is likely to turn into a screed.
Yet of course so many good poems, novels, stories have been written about situations full of terror, anxiety, sadness, all the elements available at the moment. If you think about it, the best work is generally driven by the strongest emotions. Is it a matter of harnessing those emotions? Probably not, methinks. Harnessing holds back the very feelings we want in the writing.
I think there’s a danger, for a writer, in staying for long on the level of politics. Politics are a meta-level of existence, made of ideas and concepts. Necessary, but rigid. They’re thoughts condensed into blocks, into attitudes, into political parties. They’re marble statues, high-rise apartments.
To get inside, I’d say it’s best for writers to make ourselves small as a bug, climb through the keyhole. I’m not just thinking about writing; it’s also true of human relationships.
Don’t you get quickly bored with concepts? Don’t you want to know that my arthritis is worse, that I went to the therapy pool for the first time in a while yesterday and walked up and down, up and down. Stretched. It helped. Warm water eases things. I get in the spa for a few minutes, but I don’t think it’s good to spend much time breathing the steam and bubbles, loaded with chemicals.
Don’t you want to know this, how one person’s life is going? I think we want to get inside that life because we really aren’t separate. Like trees, our roots touch each other, feed each other.
Michelle, my youngest sister, who has epilepsy, had a major seizure recently. Turns out it was triggered by an unfortunate combination of drugs she was prescribed for a cold. She’s okay now, recovering. When you’re old, and especially if you live in a retirement community, you see the vulnerabilities of the body, including your own. Oddly—and you wouldn’t have thought it when you were young—you aren’t bothered by this. It doesn’t seem like a violation, a travesty. It seems normal. Often sad, but that’s how it is. There’s plenty to feel happy about. Being alive, for one.
Spring is in the air.
Today is the first day I can metaphorically smell spring in the air. Sun is shining, snow melting as the temperature edges above freezing. Light comes earlier, which makes me happy. I grew up in Arkansas—I thrive on light, and warmth, to some degree. Northern winters are hard on me (except when there’s a gorgeous snow), but when spring comes, it’s like a revelation. Worth the dark days.
This is a ramble. Like a letter, which people hardly ever write. It’s addressed to you, organized a bit, but mostly just my thoughts, tumbled out one after another, each one “my letter to the world,” as Emily Dickinson called it. Writers mean to be read. We want to be read. Even a diary with its little lock and key is written as if someone will read it someday. Otherwise why bother? Why bother sending out tendrils if not to nourish the next being?
The P.S. . . . .
I’ll give you a list next time of some local readings coming up for Doctor of the World. I’ve just gotten proofs and all sorts of stuff I’m supposed to take care of, soon.