Tess Callahan's Blog
July 1, 2009
So, I’m trying an experiment. Bear with me.
Stacey, creative mastermind of this website, commented on my post yesterday, (Cracks in Everything: Parenthood and the Writing Life), that she often has a perfect blueprint for her day that somehow eludes her. That applies to me, as well, not only in terms of days, but weeks, summers, my whole life, for that matter.
Several years ago I sent my novel out too soon. I had a big name agent who was high on the manuscript, and wanted to auction it to five publishing houses with the idea of starting a bidding war. When one-by-one all five praised the book but declined to make an offer, the surprised agent, who once told me we would grow old and grey together, dropped me like a burning ember. This coincided with a move to Argentina that turned out to be a difficult year for me. I felt lost.
The book sat in a box for eons until a friend from my writing group pushed me to take it out again. When I did, so much time had elapsed that I knew exactly what to do. I could treat the manuscript like someone else’s material. In retrospect, I am so grateful that the earlier version did not sell; it simply wasn’t done. Yesterday, Laura Orem noted the Buddhist notion that there are no true mistakes, just opportunities. My nightmare, in this case, turned out to be a blessing. Of course, the opposite can also occur. We’ve all had those. In short, expectations appear to be completely useless.
OK, the experiment. This morning I am jotting down five expected highlights of the day ahead of me, the intersections through which I predict the hours will turn and flow. Tonight, I will note down the five actual moments that resonate as the day draws to a close. Here goes:
10 AM - Expected pivots, in anticipation:
1. Drive daughter to and from riding stable.
2. Email publicist regarding this afternoon’s interview, and NPR producer regarding line edits.
3. BlogTalkRadio live call-in interview. (Argh! Nervous!)
4. Catch 2:25 bus with kids to meet husband at Jacob Javits Center and join friends for dinner.
5. Sign stock at Barnes & Noble and Borders.
10 PM - Actual pivots, in retrospect:
1. Two words floating up from a dream upon waking, “oasis” and “diasporas.” No images attached, just the luscious, open sound of the vowels drifting on my consciousness.
2. Reaching through Charming’s stall door to touch his neck, warm and moist with the day’s burgeoning heat. His soft muzzle nudging my shoulder.
3. During the interview, when asked about the dead brother in my novel, remembering all at once my cousin Annemarie, my age, dead at twenty in a car crash. Her long, thick braids and quiet self-possession.
4. A downpour bowing the umbrella we huddle beneath. Feeling the knobby, wet cobblestones of Gansevoort Street beneath the soles of my shoes.
5. Just now, checking on the kids in their darkened rooms. The sound of their breath. Distant traffic. The dog’s sigh.
I love the line from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, “The roses had the look of roses that are looked at.”
So attached was I to my preconceived picture of my day that I almost didn’t see the one that actually transpired.
Stacey, creative mastermind of this website, commented on my post yesterday, (Cracks in Everything: Parenthood and the Writing Life), that she often has a perfect blueprint for her day that somehow eludes her. That applies to me, as well, not only in terms of days, but weeks, summers, my whole life, for that matter.
Several years ago I sent my novel out too soon. I had a big name agent who was high on the manuscript, and wanted to auction it to five publishing houses with the idea of starting a bidding war. When one-by-one all five praised the book but declined to make an offer, the surprised agent, who once told me we would grow old and grey together, dropped me like a burning ember. This coincided with a move to Argentina that turned out to be a difficult year for me. I felt lost.
The book sat in a box for eons until a friend from my writing group pushed me to take it out again. When I did, so much time had elapsed that I knew exactly what to do. I could treat the manuscript like someone else’s material. In retrospect, I am so grateful that the earlier version did not sell; it simply wasn’t done. Yesterday, Laura Orem noted the Buddhist notion that there are no true mistakes, just opportunities. My nightmare, in this case, turned out to be a blessing. Of course, the opposite can also occur. We’ve all had those. In short, expectations appear to be completely useless.
OK, the experiment. This morning I am jotting down five expected highlights of the day ahead of me, the intersections through which I predict the hours will turn and flow. Tonight, I will note down the five actual moments that resonate as the day draws to a close. Here goes:
10 AM - Expected pivots, in anticipation:
1. Drive daughter to and from riding stable.
2. Email publicist regarding this afternoon’s interview, and NPR producer regarding line edits.
3. BlogTalkRadio live call-in interview. (Argh! Nervous!)
4. Catch 2:25 bus with kids to meet husband at Jacob Javits Center and join friends for dinner.
5. Sign stock at Barnes & Noble and Borders.
10 PM - Actual pivots, in retrospect:
1. Two words floating up from a dream upon waking, “oasis” and “diasporas.” No images attached, just the luscious, open sound of the vowels drifting on my consciousness.
2. Reaching through Charming’s stall door to touch his neck, warm and moist with the day’s burgeoning heat. His soft muzzle nudging my shoulder.
3. During the interview, when asked about the dead brother in my novel, remembering all at once my cousin Annemarie, my age, dead at twenty in a car crash. Her long, thick braids and quiet self-possession.
4. A downpour bowing the umbrella we huddle beneath. Feeling the knobby, wet cobblestones of Gansevoort Street beneath the soles of my shoes.
5. Just now, checking on the kids in their darkened rooms. The sound of their breath. Distant traffic. The dog’s sigh.
I love the line from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, “The roses had the look of roses that are looked at.”
So attached was I to my preconceived picture of my day that I almost didn’t see the one that actually transpired.
0 comments
Published on July 01, 2009 08:12
| 16 views
|
Tags:
expectations, mindfulness, publishing
June 30, 2009
http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com...
"Ring the bells that still can ring,/ Forget your perfect offering./ There's a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in." – from Anthem by Leonard Cohen.
In her comment on yesterday’s post, Poem as Fissure: Geophysics and the Value of Frailty, poet and artist Laura Orem wrote that she keeps these lyrics in her art studio as a reminder. A reminder of what, I wonder? To avoid sealing up the cracks, as if that were possible? Perhaps even to embrace them? And what are the cracks, anyway?
Cohen’s Anthem speaks on many levels – globally, politically, and environmentally – yet it hits me in a personal way. Everyday I wake up with an idealized version of how my day will go, the perfect offering. I see myself having a nice conversation with my kids over breakfast. We hear the wren singing outside, and see - far below the house - the rush of the river, flush from rain. We aim to do our tasks in the morning, then head to the lake after lunch. This morning’s plan is for me to write this post, and for them to play piano, do some summer reading, and practice their online math program. I’ve been up here in my office for about an hour now, (granted, most of that was spent listening to various renditions of Anthem on YouTube), and have yet to hear any notes from the piano. Hm…
Just as I am about to go down to investigate, I hear my son’s footsteps trudging up the stairs. His sister has been on Webkinz all morning, he reports, and has not let him do his math. This, from the boy who claims to be allergic to algebra. Boo hoo. Nevertheless, I am required to make the trip downstairs to say the obvious: No computer games until the other stuff is done.
On the way down, I hear the fan running in the empty bathroom. The shower door is ajar, lights on, wet towel and pajamas on the floor. Am I surprised? Then, I peek into the bedrooms. Every so often a bed is actually made without my asking; today isn’t one of those days. I make my way down to the kitchen. Cereal bowls half filled with milk adorn the table. I make my usual lame announcement that the maid is off duty today. My kids only groan. Has anyone thought to brush teeth? I don’t bother asking. I give them a new set of orders. Forget piano and math for the moment. For now, I tell them to take care of their rooms, their clothes, and their teeth. I tell them I will check back in a few minutes, and throw in some warnings about deductions from their allowance.
Then, back upstairs to this blog post. Where was I? Ah, yes, cracks. My perfect vision of a productive morning and relaxing afternoon is already splintering. What gets me most is the bickering: She took a book off my shelf without asking! He hit me with the dog’s chew toy! A lifelong conflict-avoider, I am turned inside out by these run-of-the-mill quarrels. I try not to show it. I tell them it’s normal for siblings to fight sometimes, and they know how to work it out. They have plenty of practice.
Finally, I hear my daughter’s notes on the piano, and before long, my son’s footsteps as he stomps up the stairs again. He has forgotten the password to the online math program. “Can’t you just hit remember?” I say. It’s another trip down the stairs because I, too, have forgotten, and must look it up. “We’re not going to make it to the lake, are we?” he says. “And it’s all her fault.”
I imagine the Anthem lyrics refer to bigger cracks than my petty grumbles; true fractures in the realm of death, divorce, illness, and war. But these distractions and disruptions are the little splinters that make up my day as a parent. Okay, Leonard, where’s the light? By my calculation, I should be sunburned by now, except that we are still in the house, not at the lake, and our prospects of getting there are dwindling.
Maybe my perfect offering was too contrived. Maybe my kids won’t make big leaps in math this summer. Maybe my blog posts won’t be brilliant. Maybe it will take awhile longer before my children load the dishwasher without being asked, (I’m not giving up on that one, though!) Maybe the cracks are the spaces where we actually encounter each other in the most raw and honest ways. Idealized pictures, with their soft, faded edges, are never as engaging as the real thing. Any image I may form of who my daughter and son might become, and how they will relate to each other, will surely be wrong, so I try not to speculate. We only have the moment at hand, this sunny afternoon and the desire to be out in it after so many weeks of rain. Enough of math, piano, and blogging. Let’s ring the bells that still can ring. We’re off to the lake to enjoy this singular day, cracks and all.
"Ring the bells that still can ring,/ Forget your perfect offering./ There's a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in." – from Anthem by Leonard Cohen.
In her comment on yesterday’s post, Poem as Fissure: Geophysics and the Value of Frailty, poet and artist Laura Orem wrote that she keeps these lyrics in her art studio as a reminder. A reminder of what, I wonder? To avoid sealing up the cracks, as if that were possible? Perhaps even to embrace them? And what are the cracks, anyway?
Cohen’s Anthem speaks on many levels – globally, politically, and environmentally – yet it hits me in a personal way. Everyday I wake up with an idealized version of how my day will go, the perfect offering. I see myself having a nice conversation with my kids over breakfast. We hear the wren singing outside, and see - far below the house - the rush of the river, flush from rain. We aim to do our tasks in the morning, then head to the lake after lunch. This morning’s plan is for me to write this post, and for them to play piano, do some summer reading, and practice their online math program. I’ve been up here in my office for about an hour now, (granted, most of that was spent listening to various renditions of Anthem on YouTube), and have yet to hear any notes from the piano. Hm…
Just as I am about to go down to investigate, I hear my son’s footsteps trudging up the stairs. His sister has been on Webkinz all morning, he reports, and has not let him do his math. This, from the boy who claims to be allergic to algebra. Boo hoo. Nevertheless, I am required to make the trip downstairs to say the obvious: No computer games until the other stuff is done.
On the way down, I hear the fan running in the empty bathroom. The shower door is ajar, lights on, wet towel and pajamas on the floor. Am I surprised? Then, I peek into the bedrooms. Every so often a bed is actually made without my asking; today isn’t one of those days. I make my way down to the kitchen. Cereal bowls half filled with milk adorn the table. I make my usual lame announcement that the maid is off duty today. My kids only groan. Has anyone thought to brush teeth? I don’t bother asking. I give them a new set of orders. Forget piano and math for the moment. For now, I tell them to take care of their rooms, their clothes, and their teeth. I tell them I will check back in a few minutes, and throw in some warnings about deductions from their allowance.
Then, back upstairs to this blog post. Where was I? Ah, yes, cracks. My perfect vision of a productive morning and relaxing afternoon is already splintering. What gets me most is the bickering: She took a book off my shelf without asking! He hit me with the dog’s chew toy! A lifelong conflict-avoider, I am turned inside out by these run-of-the-mill quarrels. I try not to show it. I tell them it’s normal for siblings to fight sometimes, and they know how to work it out. They have plenty of practice.
Finally, I hear my daughter’s notes on the piano, and before long, my son’s footsteps as he stomps up the stairs again. He has forgotten the password to the online math program. “Can’t you just hit remember?” I say. It’s another trip down the stairs because I, too, have forgotten, and must look it up. “We’re not going to make it to the lake, are we?” he says. “And it’s all her fault.”
I imagine the Anthem lyrics refer to bigger cracks than my petty grumbles; true fractures in the realm of death, divorce, illness, and war. But these distractions and disruptions are the little splinters that make up my day as a parent. Okay, Leonard, where’s the light? By my calculation, I should be sunburned by now, except that we are still in the house, not at the lake, and our prospects of getting there are dwindling.
Maybe my perfect offering was too contrived. Maybe my kids won’t make big leaps in math this summer. Maybe my blog posts won’t be brilliant. Maybe it will take awhile longer before my children load the dishwasher without being asked, (I’m not giving up on that one, though!) Maybe the cracks are the spaces where we actually encounter each other in the most raw and honest ways. Idealized pictures, with their soft, faded edges, are never as engaging as the real thing. Any image I may form of who my daughter and son might become, and how they will relate to each other, will surely be wrong, so I try not to speculate. We only have the moment at hand, this sunny afternoon and the desire to be out in it after so many weeks of rain. Enough of math, piano, and blogging. Let’s ring the bells that still can ring. We’re off to the lake to enjoy this singular day, cracks and all.
http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com...
The title here comes from poet Debra Wierenga, who offered this comment to yesterday’s post: “I like the idea of poem as fissure, the artful crack in the mask through which authentic feeling becomes palpable to the reader.”
We’ve created a culture that worships strength - physical, social, psychological and professional - but is it possible that a degree of fragility is vital to our wellbeing? French geophysicist Xavier Le Pichon says yes. Featured recently on NPR, Le Pichon is famous for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics, or the large scale motions of Earth’s lithosphere.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/p...
The earth’s surface is made up of constantly moving plates shifting against one another. You might suppose that a solid, steel-like lithosphere would make for a more stable structure, but the opposite is true. The pressure, tension, and sublimation between the shifting plates - much of which occurs beneath the ocean floor - is one of the reasons the planet can sustain life. The earth’s seemingly stable surface and molten interior are in constant dialogue, sometimes manifested as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.
The human parallel is striking. The more ductile our outer surface, or ego, the more seamlessly we can flow with the subterranean shifts in our awareness and understanding. Poetry is one conduit. The poet accesses the deep, unseen currents and invites the reader to follow. Nature is another portal, as are music and art. But if our ego is too stiff and rigid, like the dense rock surface of the San Andreas Fault, we cannot make the tiny, ongoing adjustments to our own inward movement. The ego and the soul become disjointed, causing pressure to mount until the correction comes in one cataclysmic jolt.
The character Oliver, in my novel, April & Oliver, exemplifies this. He has a created such a fixed, closed outer reality that he has left no room for the influence of more subtle, interior energies, such as insight and instinct. In fact, he is afraid of the power of those blocked off magma chambers, which harbor the musical sensibility he has long buried. Disowning one’s power is a dangerous thing, however, and the seismic adjustment for Oliver will be, by necessity, catastrophic.
The metaphor is illustrated by this poem taught to Le Pichon by his mother. Can it be a coincidence that the boy who memorized this poem in childhood went on to become an expert in plate tectonics?
Le Vase Brisé (The Broken Vase)
by Sully Prudhomme
The vase where this verbena’s dying
Was cracked by a lady’s fan’s soft blow.
It must have been the merest grazing:
We heard no sound. The fissure grew.
The little wound spread while we slept,
Pried deep in the crystal, bit by bit.
A long, slow marching line, it crept
From spreading base to curving lip.
The water oozed out drop by drop,
Bled from the line we’d not seen etched.
The flowers drained out all their sap.
The vase is broken: do not touch.
The quick, sleek hand of one we love
Can tap us with a fan’s soft blow,
And we will break, as surely riven
As that cracked vase. And no one knows.
The world sees just the hard, curved surface
Of a vase a lady’s fan once grazed,
That slowly drips and bleeds with sadness.
Do not touch the broken vase.
The artful cracks in our masks are the seams through which compassion can flow. It took me a long time to get my novel right; every day I sat down and drank tea with my dejection. That was nothing, of course, compared to the loss of loved ones that life inevitably brings us. But failure and loss can be powerful teachers. Six months after sending my revised manuscript to the last agent I was ever going to try, I made a decision to purge my house, donating old clothes and children’s toys, and throwing away cartons of old manuscripts – first drafts, teacher’s comments, everything. I saved nothing. I had not given up writing, just the dream. Two weeks later, the agent called and asked to represent the book. Two days after that, the book was sold. I’m not suggesting cause and effect, only that the fissures created by so much failure allowed me to release old energy, like a long exhalation, and invite in the moment at hand.
The title here comes from poet Debra Wierenga, who offered this comment to yesterday’s post: “I like the idea of poem as fissure, the artful crack in the mask through which authentic feeling becomes palpable to the reader.”
We’ve created a culture that worships strength - physical, social, psychological and professional - but is it possible that a degree of fragility is vital to our wellbeing? French geophysicist Xavier Le Pichon says yes. Featured recently on NPR, Le Pichon is famous for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics, or the large scale motions of Earth’s lithosphere.
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/p...
The earth’s surface is made up of constantly moving plates shifting against one another. You might suppose that a solid, steel-like lithosphere would make for a more stable structure, but the opposite is true. The pressure, tension, and sublimation between the shifting plates - much of which occurs beneath the ocean floor - is one of the reasons the planet can sustain life. The earth’s seemingly stable surface and molten interior are in constant dialogue, sometimes manifested as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.
The human parallel is striking. The more ductile our outer surface, or ego, the more seamlessly we can flow with the subterranean shifts in our awareness and understanding. Poetry is one conduit. The poet accesses the deep, unseen currents and invites the reader to follow. Nature is another portal, as are music and art. But if our ego is too stiff and rigid, like the dense rock surface of the San Andreas Fault, we cannot make the tiny, ongoing adjustments to our own inward movement. The ego and the soul become disjointed, causing pressure to mount until the correction comes in one cataclysmic jolt.
The character Oliver, in my novel, April & Oliver, exemplifies this. He has a created such a fixed, closed outer reality that he has left no room for the influence of more subtle, interior energies, such as insight and instinct. In fact, he is afraid of the power of those blocked off magma chambers, which harbor the musical sensibility he has long buried. Disowning one’s power is a dangerous thing, however, and the seismic adjustment for Oliver will be, by necessity, catastrophic.
The metaphor is illustrated by this poem taught to Le Pichon by his mother. Can it be a coincidence that the boy who memorized this poem in childhood went on to become an expert in plate tectonics?
Le Vase Brisé (The Broken Vase)
by Sully Prudhomme
The vase where this verbena’s dying
Was cracked by a lady’s fan’s soft blow.
It must have been the merest grazing:
We heard no sound. The fissure grew.
The little wound spread while we slept,
Pried deep in the crystal, bit by bit.
A long, slow marching line, it crept
From spreading base to curving lip.
The water oozed out drop by drop,
Bled from the line we’d not seen etched.
The flowers drained out all their sap.
The vase is broken: do not touch.
The quick, sleek hand of one we love
Can tap us with a fan’s soft blow,
And we will break, as surely riven
As that cracked vase. And no one knows.
The world sees just the hard, curved surface
Of a vase a lady’s fan once grazed,
That slowly drips and bleeds with sadness.
Do not touch the broken vase.
The artful cracks in our masks are the seams through which compassion can flow. It took me a long time to get my novel right; every day I sat down and drank tea with my dejection. That was nothing, of course, compared to the loss of loved ones that life inevitably brings us. But failure and loss can be powerful teachers. Six months after sending my revised manuscript to the last agent I was ever going to try, I made a decision to purge my house, donating old clothes and children’s toys, and throwing away cartons of old manuscripts – first drafts, teacher’s comments, everything. I saved nothing. I had not given up writing, just the dream. Two weeks later, the agent called and asked to represent the book. Two days after that, the book was sold. I’m not suggesting cause and effect, only that the fissures created by so much failure allowed me to release old energy, like a long exhalation, and invite in the moment at hand.
http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com...
After Michael Jackson's rush to the hospital on Thursday, his attorney, Brian Oxman, told CNN, "The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him. If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it's nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson's life."
Famous people attract leeches. We only have to look at the sad cases of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. Yet, enablers don't generally walk into our lives unbidden. We gravitate toward those who confirm our comfortable illusions and intractable habits. Let's not kid ourselves; we all do it.
In my novel, April & Oliver, published this month, both main characters surround themselves with enablers. For April, it's the more conventional kind. She has a habit of hard living and dangerous men because, frankly, feeling numb is what seems normal to her, and living in a rough environment is one way to maintain that. Her cronies at the bar and assorted male counterparts are surely not going to say, "Hey, do you think this lifestyle is good for you?" Why would they when they get part of the payoff?
For Oliver, the enabling is more subtle. He is a successful law student happily engaged to a sensitive, caring person who is also a super-achiever. The hitch is that Oliver has, for the sake of convenience, snuffed out an essential part of himself - his music. Music was his portal to the full measure of life experience, with all its rapture and pain, but it became too much for him, so he buried it. His fiance is an enabler in the sense that she sees nothing truncated about him. She is unaware of the touchstone that once kept him grounded and open to life. All of the external measures say he is fine, so it must be so. He's not, of course. When his life again collides with April's, turmoil erupts because they do not uphold one another's illusions. Rather than enable, they call each other on their inconsistencies, and sparks erupt.
Who is the better friend, I wonder, one who comforts and affirms, or one who says, when needed, "What the hell are you doing with your life?"
In an article in yesterday's New York Times, "His Moves Expressed as Much as His Music," Alastair Macaulay writes that Jackson's kinetic genius on the dance floor, praised by Fred Astaire, mutated over time into something more choreographed and precise, but less spontaneous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/arts/m...
The quality that diminished over time, Macaulay asserts, is vulnerability, which the later Jackson apparently felt compelled to hide. That vulnerability was his poetry. Authentic poetry can only issue from a place of raw honesty, and how is that possible without genuine friends with whom to be honest?
The purpose of addiction, whether to painkillers, alcohol, abuse, or overwork, is to numb ourselves. And, why not? Isn't life painful without the occasional crutch? But when occasional becomes chronic, the wall we erect against pain can only fissure. The French geo-physicist, Xavier Le Pichon, known for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics, has written nimbly about the necessity of those cracks in our lives through which pain enters, and through which we can achieve genuine compassion for others. The absence of those fissures, geologically or psychologically, can only lead to quakes. More on that tomorrow. For now, I am going to give some thought to my own subtle addictions, the enablers I invite in, and the way I enable others. Is it OK to throw up my hands and say a loved one works too much because he wants to? Or does live and let live have its limits?
After Michael Jackson's rush to the hospital on Thursday, his attorney, Brian Oxman, told CNN, "The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him. If you think the case of Anna Nicole Smith was an abuse, it's nothing in comparison to what we have seen taking place in Michael Jackson's life."
Famous people attract leeches. We only have to look at the sad cases of Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. Yet, enablers don't generally walk into our lives unbidden. We gravitate toward those who confirm our comfortable illusions and intractable habits. Let's not kid ourselves; we all do it.
In my novel, April & Oliver, published this month, both main characters surround themselves with enablers. For April, it's the more conventional kind. She has a habit of hard living and dangerous men because, frankly, feeling numb is what seems normal to her, and living in a rough environment is one way to maintain that. Her cronies at the bar and assorted male counterparts are surely not going to say, "Hey, do you think this lifestyle is good for you?" Why would they when they get part of the payoff?
For Oliver, the enabling is more subtle. He is a successful law student happily engaged to a sensitive, caring person who is also a super-achiever. The hitch is that Oliver has, for the sake of convenience, snuffed out an essential part of himself - his music. Music was his portal to the full measure of life experience, with all its rapture and pain, but it became too much for him, so he buried it. His fiance is an enabler in the sense that she sees nothing truncated about him. She is unaware of the touchstone that once kept him grounded and open to life. All of the external measures say he is fine, so it must be so. He's not, of course. When his life again collides with April's, turmoil erupts because they do not uphold one another's illusions. Rather than enable, they call each other on their inconsistencies, and sparks erupt.
Who is the better friend, I wonder, one who comforts and affirms, or one who says, when needed, "What the hell are you doing with your life?"
In an article in yesterday's New York Times, "His Moves Expressed as Much as His Music," Alastair Macaulay writes that Jackson's kinetic genius on the dance floor, praised by Fred Astaire, mutated over time into something more choreographed and precise, but less spontaneous.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/arts/m...
The quality that diminished over time, Macaulay asserts, is vulnerability, which the later Jackson apparently felt compelled to hide. That vulnerability was his poetry. Authentic poetry can only issue from a place of raw honesty, and how is that possible without genuine friends with whom to be honest?
The purpose of addiction, whether to painkillers, alcohol, abuse, or overwork, is to numb ourselves. And, why not? Isn't life painful without the occasional crutch? But when occasional becomes chronic, the wall we erect against pain can only fissure. The French geo-physicist, Xavier Le Pichon, known for his comprehensive model of plate tectonics, has written nimbly about the necessity of those cracks in our lives through which pain enters, and through which we can achieve genuine compassion for others. The absence of those fissures, geologically or psychologically, can only lead to quakes. More on that tomorrow. For now, I am going to give some thought to my own subtle addictions, the enablers I invite in, and the way I enable others. Is it OK to throw up my hands and say a loved one works too much because he wants to? Or does live and let live have its limits?
0 comments
Published on June 30, 2009 07:15
May 30, 2009
If you have an interest in Eckart Tolle's fascinating book, The Power of Now, check out this essay on Powells.com:
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=6648
http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=6648
April 27, 2009
Check out the "Lives" column on the last page of the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, May 10, 2009 for a Mother's Day essay by Tess Callahan.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/m...
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/features/m...
0 comments
Published on April 27, 2009 15:38
| 10 views
|
Tags:
childbirth, day, delivery, mother-s, motherhood, twins
Review of April & Oliver by The Library Journal 4/15/09:
Callahan spins a dark, gritty tale of love, yearning, and choices while presenting engaging characters and substantial action that packs more than a few punches. Wise beyond words.
Callahan spins a dark, gritty tale of love, yearning, and choices while presenting engaging characters and substantial action that packs more than a few punches. Wise beyond words.
March 30, 2009
Tess Callahan will read from her novel, APRIL & OLIVER, at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut Street, Newton, MA on Sunday, June 7 at 2pm, (store phone: 617-244-6619), and at the Livingston Mall Barnes & Noble,112 Eisenhower Parkway, Livingston, NJ 07039 (store phone: 973-758-1310) on Saturday, June 13 at 7pm. She will be available to answer questions and sign books.
0 comments
Published on March 30, 2009 08:51
| 2 views
