Glenda Burgess's Blog, page 26
January 28, 2013
Creative Blocks
Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.
~ Stephen DeStaebler
Blocks produce in the artist an attitude of pessimism and defeat. He loses that necessary touch of arrogance; the drive to produce new things fades; the mind is blunted.
~ Lawrence Hatterer
A creative block is the wall we erect to ward off the anxiety we suppose we'll experience if we sit down to work. A creative block is a fear about the future, a guess about the dangers dwelling in the dark computer and the locked studio. A block is a sudden, disheartening doubt about our right to create, about our ability, about our very being. And the cure? A melting surrender, a little love, a little self-love, a little optimism, and a series of baby steps toward the work.
~ Eric Maisel
David Bayles and Ted Orland wrote a small chapbook in 1993 called "Art & Fear: Observations of The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking." This little book is a refreshingly honest and insightful exploration of the creative process, the workplace experience, and the bridges between. In their introduction the authors write, Making art is a common and intimately human activity, filled with all the perils (and rewards) that accompany any worthwhile effort. The difficulties artmakers face are not remote and heroic, but universal and familiar... This book is about what it feels like to sit in your studio or classroom, at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing Free Will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work.
In a section called "Art & Fear," the authors observe - Those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue - or more precisely, have learned how not to quit. That is a powerful statement in support of tenacity in the creative life. Quitting, they argue, is fundamentally different than stopping. Stopping happens all the time - an idea runs dry, an attempt is scrubbed at the point of diminishing returns - but quitting happens just once. It marks the last thing an artist does. The authors identify pitfalls for blocks, defeat, stalemates, that seem to fall into two specific moments - when artists convince themselves their next effort is already doomed to fail, and, when they lose sight of the destination for their work - for the place their work belongs. Losing the sense of the destination for one's work can ironically mark the moment a driving goal is achieved. Success. Success frequently and easily transmutes into depression. Continuing on means leaving some loose thread, some unresolved creative idea or issue to carry forward and explore in one's next piece.
Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. It gives substance to that sense of self - and the corresponding fear that one is not up to the task, not real, or good, that we have nothing to say. "Making art precipitates self-doubt," write Bayles and Orland. "Stirring deep waters between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might me." Doubt can be enough to stop the artist before he or she even begins, and often appears again and again throughout the cycle of making, and then releasing work to critical review in the world. The key, according to the authors, is to learn to challenge that fear every step of the creative process - from initial vision and execution, imagination, struggles with materials, through uncertainty. To continue anyway.
Uncertainty is particularly difficult, coming unannounced as it does at critical junctures in creative work. What did I start out to say? Were the materials right, the length of the piece, the way I've done this right? Tolstoy rewrote, by hand, "War & Peace" eight times and was still revising galley proofs at press. Tolerance for uncertainty is a prerequisite for working in the arts, according to the authors of "Art & Fear." Creativity is not about control, it is unpredictable. As most fiction writers discover, there is futility in overly-detailed outlines. Art happens between the artist and something - a subject, idea, or technique. The working artist learns to respond authentically challenge to challenge, each step of the way.
Which brings me back to creative blocks, those ever-so-frustrating mental tar pits. I have been dealing with an unexpected block myself for the last two years (yes, years). Bayles and Orland are accurate in identifying endpoints, or shifts in destination or goals, as creative tripping points. My unexpected and paralyzing mindset centers on a pragmatic mental narrative on the requirements of successful re-entry, i.e. succeeding again (and better) in the publishing marketplace. Experience transmuting into awareness and thus apprehension. If those of us struggling with blocks take Eric Maisel's advice, we address our fears and anxiety over works in progress by taking baby steps toward engagement. Write two pages a day. Put one brush stroke of color dead center on the white canvas - mar that empty perfection and free your fear. It has taken me awhile to find a continuing creative thread forward, as my last work, a memoir, was a very singular project and in an emotional way, a completion. In short, I've had to reinvent myself artistically these past two years. And now, working plan in hand, it is indeed frightening to begin again; to put myself back out there, new.
This next month I will explore process steps that are working for me, and what I tried that didn't. And I'll share with you the rejection experience of subsequent drafts of new work that muddied the process and left me wondering about ever succeeding in a constantly changing market. Today's artists must also confront the paradox of producing creatively from the same inner well that online social media self-promotion draws from. Can an artist both create and market simultaneously? Cycling between producing work followed by promotion, can the artist find a way through a now almost perpetual uncertainty? What does it take to begin creatively again?
Stay tuned.
~ Stephen DeStaebler
Blocks produce in the artist an attitude of pessimism and defeat. He loses that necessary touch of arrogance; the drive to produce new things fades; the mind is blunted.
~ Lawrence Hatterer
A creative block is the wall we erect to ward off the anxiety we suppose we'll experience if we sit down to work. A creative block is a fear about the future, a guess about the dangers dwelling in the dark computer and the locked studio. A block is a sudden, disheartening doubt about our right to create, about our ability, about our very being. And the cure? A melting surrender, a little love, a little self-love, a little optimism, and a series of baby steps toward the work.
~ Eric Maisel
David Bayles and Ted Orland wrote a small chapbook in 1993 called "Art & Fear: Observations of The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking." This little book is a refreshingly honest and insightful exploration of the creative process, the workplace experience, and the bridges between. In their introduction the authors write, Making art is a common and intimately human activity, filled with all the perils (and rewards) that accompany any worthwhile effort. The difficulties artmakers face are not remote and heroic, but universal and familiar... This book is about what it feels like to sit in your studio or classroom, at your wheel or keyboard, easel or camera, trying to do the work you need to do. It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing Free Will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work.
In a section called "Art & Fear," the authors observe - Those who continue to make art are those who have learned how to continue - or more precisely, have learned how not to quit. That is a powerful statement in support of tenacity in the creative life. Quitting, they argue, is fundamentally different than stopping. Stopping happens all the time - an idea runs dry, an attempt is scrubbed at the point of diminishing returns - but quitting happens just once. It marks the last thing an artist does. The authors identify pitfalls for blocks, defeat, stalemates, that seem to fall into two specific moments - when artists convince themselves their next effort is already doomed to fail, and, when they lose sight of the destination for their work - for the place their work belongs. Losing the sense of the destination for one's work can ironically mark the moment a driving goal is achieved. Success. Success frequently and easily transmutes into depression. Continuing on means leaving some loose thread, some unresolved creative idea or issue to carry forward and explore in one's next piece.
Making art can feel dangerous and revealing. It gives substance to that sense of self - and the corresponding fear that one is not up to the task, not real, or good, that we have nothing to say. "Making art precipitates self-doubt," write Bayles and Orland. "Stirring deep waters between what you know you should be, and what you fear you might me." Doubt can be enough to stop the artist before he or she even begins, and often appears again and again throughout the cycle of making, and then releasing work to critical review in the world. The key, according to the authors, is to learn to challenge that fear every step of the creative process - from initial vision and execution, imagination, struggles with materials, through uncertainty. To continue anyway.
Uncertainty is particularly difficult, coming unannounced as it does at critical junctures in creative work. What did I start out to say? Were the materials right, the length of the piece, the way I've done this right? Tolstoy rewrote, by hand, "War & Peace" eight times and was still revising galley proofs at press. Tolerance for uncertainty is a prerequisite for working in the arts, according to the authors of "Art & Fear." Creativity is not about control, it is unpredictable. As most fiction writers discover, there is futility in overly-detailed outlines. Art happens between the artist and something - a subject, idea, or technique. The working artist learns to respond authentically challenge to challenge, each step of the way.
Which brings me back to creative blocks, those ever-so-frustrating mental tar pits. I have been dealing with an unexpected block myself for the last two years (yes, years). Bayles and Orland are accurate in identifying endpoints, or shifts in destination or goals, as creative tripping points. My unexpected and paralyzing mindset centers on a pragmatic mental narrative on the requirements of successful re-entry, i.e. succeeding again (and better) in the publishing marketplace. Experience transmuting into awareness and thus apprehension. If those of us struggling with blocks take Eric Maisel's advice, we address our fears and anxiety over works in progress by taking baby steps toward engagement. Write two pages a day. Put one brush stroke of color dead center on the white canvas - mar that empty perfection and free your fear. It has taken me awhile to find a continuing creative thread forward, as my last work, a memoir, was a very singular project and in an emotional way, a completion. In short, I've had to reinvent myself artistically these past two years. And now, working plan in hand, it is indeed frightening to begin again; to put myself back out there, new.
This next month I will explore process steps that are working for me, and what I tried that didn't. And I'll share with you the rejection experience of subsequent drafts of new work that muddied the process and left me wondering about ever succeeding in a constantly changing market. Today's artists must also confront the paradox of producing creatively from the same inner well that online social media self-promotion draws from. Can an artist both create and market simultaneously? Cycling between producing work followed by promotion, can the artist find a way through a now almost perpetual uncertainty? What does it take to begin creatively again?
Stay tuned.
January 23, 2013
Persuasion
...persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith became
A passionate intuition."
~ William Wordsworth
The last few days I spent on vacation in the Pacific tropics swimming and playing among sea turtles, watching Humpback whales breach and spout in the bay, lulled by the traveling trade winds in the palm fronds. I stood, cold and wind-whipped after hiking straight down from the edge of the 11,000 ft Haleakala Crater to the dormant cone of an ancient black and red sands caldera, all the Pacific beyond me.
The active presence of nature felt full and ripe, in stark contrast to the frozen, empty palette I left behind, the Inland Northwest in deep winter. I had time to consider the rich and diverse differences. The openness to life that warmth versus cold brings, island patterns of coexistence with an all-powerful ocean in contrast to mainland practices focused on land domination - harvest, drilling, excavation. Resources are more obviously finite on an island. There is a greater awareness of the balance among all things - fresh water and land for life and planting, wind and fishing, erosion and pollution, even the great struggle between earth and sea as volcanic cycles and ocean dance.
There is a sense on an island that everything and nothing is taken as a given. That life is rooted in biological harmony, exists in a specific niche, and a tilt in one species or eco-subsystem triggers a reverberation felt by all. In the Inland Northwest, a land of abundant resources, from farmland to timber and mining, there exists more of a sense of contemporary resource management than generations of guidance by an intuitive balance at play. We intelligently "manage" our lands, fishing, mines, and timber stands. We do not see ourselves as part of a great ancient wheel of shared survival and change that marks island cultures. This difference, I think, is partly behind the timelessness, the ease of island life...the sense that the gift of today is not to be wasted. On the mainland we toil endlessly, we produce and harvest, develop and market; we are conquerors, not inhabitants. A subtle but significant difference.
This element of harmony with all things, sharing a rock in the tide pool, colors my time in the Pacific islands. A gentle reminder that I am part of where I live, whether I am always subtly aware of that truth or not. That by thinking of myself as interconnected, even here within the hard cold of winter watching for the return of the geese north and the limning of the green on bare branches, I am as present in my today as the great sea turtle paddling the rolling wave, the Humpback breaking the surface to fly airborne into the sun. Cycles, balance, diversity, interconnection. Living.
Had ripened into faith, and faith became
A passionate intuition."
~ William Wordsworth
The last few days I spent on vacation in the Pacific tropics swimming and playing among sea turtles, watching Humpback whales breach and spout in the bay, lulled by the traveling trade winds in the palm fronds. I stood, cold and wind-whipped after hiking straight down from the edge of the 11,000 ft Haleakala Crater to the dormant cone of an ancient black and red sands caldera, all the Pacific beyond me.
The active presence of nature felt full and ripe, in stark contrast to the frozen, empty palette I left behind, the Inland Northwest in deep winter. I had time to consider the rich and diverse differences. The openness to life that warmth versus cold brings, island patterns of coexistence with an all-powerful ocean in contrast to mainland practices focused on land domination - harvest, drilling, excavation. Resources are more obviously finite on an island. There is a greater awareness of the balance among all things - fresh water and land for life and planting, wind and fishing, erosion and pollution, even the great struggle between earth and sea as volcanic cycles and ocean dance.
There is a sense on an island that everything and nothing is taken as a given. That life is rooted in biological harmony, exists in a specific niche, and a tilt in one species or eco-subsystem triggers a reverberation felt by all. In the Inland Northwest, a land of abundant resources, from farmland to timber and mining, there exists more of a sense of contemporary resource management than generations of guidance by an intuitive balance at play. We intelligently "manage" our lands, fishing, mines, and timber stands. We do not see ourselves as part of a great ancient wheel of shared survival and change that marks island cultures. This difference, I think, is partly behind the timelessness, the ease of island life...the sense that the gift of today is not to be wasted. On the mainland we toil endlessly, we produce and harvest, develop and market; we are conquerors, not inhabitants. A subtle but significant difference.
This element of harmony with all things, sharing a rock in the tide pool, colors my time in the Pacific islands. A gentle reminder that I am part of where I live, whether I am always subtly aware of that truth or not. That by thinking of myself as interconnected, even here within the hard cold of winter watching for the return of the geese north and the limning of the green on bare branches, I am as present in my today as the great sea turtle paddling the rolling wave, the Humpback breaking the surface to fly airborne into the sun. Cycles, balance, diversity, interconnection. Living.
January 10, 2013
Guest Blog ~ "Bridging Narratives"
Today's guest post is an essay from my 23 year old daughter, a first year medical student at the University of Washington. In addition to rigorous coursework in sciences, anatomy, and clinical training, she had an opportunity to take an elective Thursday nights offered at the home of the physician teaching the class, called "Mind, Body, and Pen." This intimate class, offered to UW Medical students for more than fifteen years, has received rave reviews from other students and she thought the connection between thinking, writing, and medicine was worth exploring - if only because many of her research projects culminate in science journal publications. The first class required a spontaneous "free write" to be read aloud to the group in answer to the question - "What brings you to this class?" Her answer, I feel, is worth sharing with anyone interested in bridging between the creative and the analytical; in connecting the inner and outer worlds we experience.
And so, Kate in her own words~
1/10/13
Growing up with a mother who was a novelist, I spent my free time with her figuring out how to look at the world with a constant inner narrative. Every situation, every line in the grocery store, couple out at dinner, warranted speculation and storytelling. When medicine entered my worldview, specifically, time with patients in the geriatric ward, the two clicked. I had a beautiful language, with it�s own cadence, nuance, slang, at my disposal. With the constant need to narrate ever present � an influx of experiences, memories, small and large moments � I found that writing the words, situations and moments became an integral part of not only how I processed, but how I learned. During the first C-section delivery I scrubbed into (which also happened be my first time around blood, surgery and babies), my mind was bursting with the poetry of the moment. I couldn�t just explain what I had experienced; I needed to write it, to share the moments and the words that had filled my mind. This experience, with perhaps one paragraph added, became my personal statement for medical school, for it so perfectly represented everything that medicine was for me. It said things about me I never realized I believed, pointed out details I had internalized but had not processed. It was a defining moment.
I come to this class with a need to continue this narrative, to once more take it out of my head (too full already with more of this beautiful medical language) and put it to paper, or word processor as it may be. I feel I am constantly seeking a mode for how I want to process my world, humanist that I am. I am so afraid of letting my humanist side show � this inner poetic narrative I have. The effort and energy I put into being one of the medical people, one of the scientists, is what allows me to function in medicine. Language, the power of manipulating it, adding and subtracting, inventing, is what allows me to combine this foreign medical culture with my own culture � my world view of art and narration.
Medicine is the catalyst for shifting that narrative from internal to external, to see my words and feelings go from momentary acts of creative thinking into the realm of honesty. The medical world energizes me, gives me drive and keeps me moving � I am constantly filled with wonder, something I hope to never lose. I want to connect the two narratives, humanist and medical student. To find a way to ultimately integrate the passion and excitement of this journey and the connections I make - between people, ideas, everything covered by that word. Ultimately, I want to understand the nature of the drive medicine gives me; and the nature of the beauty in the good, ugly, the tired, stressed or overwhelming experience.
Thank you, Kate.
And so, Kate in her own words~
1/10/13
Growing up with a mother who was a novelist, I spent my free time with her figuring out how to look at the world with a constant inner narrative. Every situation, every line in the grocery store, couple out at dinner, warranted speculation and storytelling. When medicine entered my worldview, specifically, time with patients in the geriatric ward, the two clicked. I had a beautiful language, with it�s own cadence, nuance, slang, at my disposal. With the constant need to narrate ever present � an influx of experiences, memories, small and large moments � I found that writing the words, situations and moments became an integral part of not only how I processed, but how I learned. During the first C-section delivery I scrubbed into (which also happened be my first time around blood, surgery and babies), my mind was bursting with the poetry of the moment. I couldn�t just explain what I had experienced; I needed to write it, to share the moments and the words that had filled my mind. This experience, with perhaps one paragraph added, became my personal statement for medical school, for it so perfectly represented everything that medicine was for me. It said things about me I never realized I believed, pointed out details I had internalized but had not processed. It was a defining moment.
I come to this class with a need to continue this narrative, to once more take it out of my head (too full already with more of this beautiful medical language) and put it to paper, or word processor as it may be. I feel I am constantly seeking a mode for how I want to process my world, humanist that I am. I am so afraid of letting my humanist side show � this inner poetic narrative I have. The effort and energy I put into being one of the medical people, one of the scientists, is what allows me to function in medicine. Language, the power of manipulating it, adding and subtracting, inventing, is what allows me to combine this foreign medical culture with my own culture � my world view of art and narration.
Medicine is the catalyst for shifting that narrative from internal to external, to see my words and feelings go from momentary acts of creative thinking into the realm of honesty. The medical world energizes me, gives me drive and keeps me moving � I am constantly filled with wonder, something I hope to never lose. I want to connect the two narratives, humanist and medical student. To find a way to ultimately integrate the passion and excitement of this journey and the connections I make - between people, ideas, everything covered by that word. Ultimately, I want to understand the nature of the drive medicine gives me; and the nature of the beauty in the good, ugly, the tired, stressed or overwhelming experience.
Thank you, Kate.
January 8, 2013
Hand-Made Words
THE POWER OF WORDS
Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek.
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
The current cold and deadly to the heart.
Anger and fear are in them; grief and joy
Are on their sound; yet slight, impalpable:--
A word is but a breath of passing air.
~Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a hilarious scene with Sarah Jessica Parker as single New Yorker Carrie Bradshaw in the "Sex in the City" HBO series that involves her waking up to a goodbye Post-It note from her boyfriend stuck to her computer. "I"m sorry," the note reads. "I just can't." And with that Carrie is left with the end of a relationship: No why, what, just an end. She spends the day asking everyone she meets, Have you heard of this? Can you believe this? What she is really thinking is, Is that all a relationship means any more- a Post-It?
Recently more than a romance ended with a text. A colleague in the publishing industry found out she was being "merged"out of a job in a mass email from corporate headquarters. Another friend interviewed by email, and then Skype, for a position across the continent. These days, entire lives are conducted through short, abbreviated, directive messaging. Dating services, job recruiting, email distributions, list serves, group texts, ccs and blind copies... all short-cuts to important points of connection. Efficient, yes. But even in our personal lives? I am reminded of Meg Ryan's character, a children's bookstore owner named Kathleen Kelly, remarking in "You've Got Mail" that she hates it when people excuse something egregious with a trite "It isn't personal." She asks, "What is it then, if not personal? It's personal to me." By her definition communication between two persons is, personal.
I find myself wondering, don't our friends and loved ones deserve a hand-made approach? Chefs know slow cooking is synonymous with savory. Diplomacy is still conducted face to face; most actual dating too. Shouldn't we savor communications regarding important news? Be willing to invest the time, share, collaborate, chat? Even when it's bad news and our role is to offer support or pick up the phone and offer a spoken hug?
I don't believe modern relationships suddenly slipped lightweight on us. Rather, I think we've shifted as a contemporary culture toward an aggravating new "bubble effect" in our personal exchanges. Abbreviated messaging that expresses itself in some combination of rushed, lazy, disengaged, or terse. Conversations take time, and connection, opening to spontaneous and intimate exchange. An investment of attention, in other words. The reason we treasure handwritten thank you notes and invitations is the exact same reason so many of us now default to email templates. Time. We can do more with less invested if we email, text, vm, DM, tweet or post to Facebook. And yet that efficiency sucks the intimacy and specialness out of our entire message. Most of us still believe that significant events - news of a death, engagements, new jobs and lost jobs, babies, trouble with the law or great awards - are all things best shared in direct conversation. The visit, the telephone call, any spontaneous back and forth expression of emotional support or delight is the very stuff that makes us communal humans want to share our news in the first place.
So my thought today is, pick up the phone. Make a coffee date. Walk down the street and spend ten minutes with an old friend. Write a long note and post it, the old fashioned way. The value of almost everything lies beyond the how or why. That smile in your voice? Hand-made.
Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek.
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
The current cold and deadly to the heart.
Anger and fear are in them; grief and joy
Are on their sound; yet slight, impalpable:--
A word is but a breath of passing air.
~Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There is a hilarious scene with Sarah Jessica Parker as single New Yorker Carrie Bradshaw in the "Sex in the City" HBO series that involves her waking up to a goodbye Post-It note from her boyfriend stuck to her computer. "I"m sorry," the note reads. "I just can't." And with that Carrie is left with the end of a relationship: No why, what, just an end. She spends the day asking everyone she meets, Have you heard of this? Can you believe this? What she is really thinking is, Is that all a relationship means any more- a Post-It?
Recently more than a romance ended with a text. A colleague in the publishing industry found out she was being "merged"out of a job in a mass email from corporate headquarters. Another friend interviewed by email, and then Skype, for a position across the continent. These days, entire lives are conducted through short, abbreviated, directive messaging. Dating services, job recruiting, email distributions, list serves, group texts, ccs and blind copies... all short-cuts to important points of connection. Efficient, yes. But even in our personal lives? I am reminded of Meg Ryan's character, a children's bookstore owner named Kathleen Kelly, remarking in "You've Got Mail" that she hates it when people excuse something egregious with a trite "It isn't personal." She asks, "What is it then, if not personal? It's personal to me." By her definition communication between two persons is, personal.
I find myself wondering, don't our friends and loved ones deserve a hand-made approach? Chefs know slow cooking is synonymous with savory. Diplomacy is still conducted face to face; most actual dating too. Shouldn't we savor communications regarding important news? Be willing to invest the time, share, collaborate, chat? Even when it's bad news and our role is to offer support or pick up the phone and offer a spoken hug?
I don't believe modern relationships suddenly slipped lightweight on us. Rather, I think we've shifted as a contemporary culture toward an aggravating new "bubble effect" in our personal exchanges. Abbreviated messaging that expresses itself in some combination of rushed, lazy, disengaged, or terse. Conversations take time, and connection, opening to spontaneous and intimate exchange. An investment of attention, in other words. The reason we treasure handwritten thank you notes and invitations is the exact same reason so many of us now default to email templates. Time. We can do more with less invested if we email, text, vm, DM, tweet or post to Facebook. And yet that efficiency sucks the intimacy and specialness out of our entire message. Most of us still believe that significant events - news of a death, engagements, new jobs and lost jobs, babies, trouble with the law or great awards - are all things best shared in direct conversation. The visit, the telephone call, any spontaneous back and forth expression of emotional support or delight is the very stuff that makes us communal humans want to share our news in the first place.
So my thought today is, pick up the phone. Make a coffee date. Walk down the street and spend ten minutes with an old friend. Write a long note and post it, the old fashioned way. The value of almost everything lies beyond the how or why. That smile in your voice? Hand-made.
January 1, 2013
Welcome
THE BOOK OF TIME
1.
I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it's spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down into the grass.
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
~ from "The Book of Time," Mary Oliver (The Leaf and the Cloud)
While it is not yet spring, the promise is surely there underneath the snow. And while today is not so very different from yesterday, the possibility exists it might be. And although I am not much different than I have been, I am ever evolving.
So welcome. Welcome to the new year, to new thinking, new beginnings, new wonders to explore. Today's word is welcome.
1.
I rose this morning early as usual, and went to my desk.
But it's spring,
and the thrush is in the woods,
somewhere in the twirled branches, and he is singing.
And so, now, I am standing by the open door.
And now I am stepping down into the grass.
I am touching a few leaves.
I am noticing the way the yellow butterflies
move together, in a twinkling cloud, over the field.
And I am thinking: maybe just looking and listening
is the real work.
Maybe the world, without us,
is the real poem.
~ from "The Book of Time," Mary Oliver (The Leaf and the Cloud)
While it is not yet spring, the promise is surely there underneath the snow. And while today is not so very different from yesterday, the possibility exists it might be. And although I am not much different than I have been, I am ever evolving.
So welcome. Welcome to the new year, to new thinking, new beginnings, new wonders to explore. Today's word is welcome.
December 30, 2012
To End The Year
YEAR'S END
by Richard Wilbur
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I�ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
A few years back I journeyed to Pompeii, and as Wilbur writes, stood moved in contemplation of the abrupt and unforeseen "ends of time" that catastrophe brings. Amongst the excavated ruins I stood silently before the casts of crouching, unsuspecting humans, now forever ghosts of time stopped by ash. While the calendar year end is neither traumatic nor an apocalypse of ultimate end, the last day of December nonetheless marks a transition from one standardized passage of time to the beginning of another. A calendar marks the end of then which has become now, and as such, deserves our reflection.
I wrote last time about defining the essential values in our lives to help streamline personal goals and time management, and in a larger context, help us live lives that have meaning to us. To end flopping from one day to the next, so busy and overwhelmed we struggle and hurry on to the next. Defining what is essential entails identifying also what is not. And in a modern fast-paced world where multitasking is deemed both desirable and beneficial, leaving things out feels terribly threatening. What if that one meeting we do not attend is the lost career-making opportunity? What if that skipped school party becomes the cupcake-omission that keynotes the PTA Hall of Infamy? Would one more hour at the gym forever end the battle with buffet pants and launch a triathlon career? What if the bedskirts (does anybody still use bedskirts?) hide dust bunnies the size of small gerbils, which in truth mark failed character? The vacation or charity project, handwritten thank you notes or paperless post, canning garden or poetry retreat, Boy Scout den leader or work project chair? Major and minor, the muses call.
As you contemplate your personal New Year ambitions, hopes and dreams, think in terms of what is essentially important to you. Leo Babauta recommends in "The Power of Less" that we create self-guidelines for everything from how often to read and answer email to writing blogs, posts on Twitter; that we protect days for focused creative work versus time set aside for necessary inbox tasks. Give your seedling dreams room to grow by weeding out the choking distractions. Nurture and allow the light in. Embrace a set of work and life limitations, and then commit to honest enforcement of the fence-lines and watch your progress toward your goals flourish.
Personally this means I set aside days for writing long from those for short projects. I used to be all about work, and home, partnering, parenting chores and challenges. I would ping back between those two poles like a Yo-Yo, sometimes knocking myself out in a tangle of well-intentioned string. Now? I group priorities together, creating time carved from things less important in my life. Streamline the quotidien, the ordinary. Think about all the moments that make up the day and choose how to spend them.
We'll never know which use of time is "best." Only that choices must be made. Time, as the year end reminds us, is both finite and passing even as we speak. Not everything can be done, not all of what life has to offer can be sampled, not all worthy goals met. Life becomes quite simply about the choices we give our hearts to. So give well.
by Richard Wilbur
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I�ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
A few years back I journeyed to Pompeii, and as Wilbur writes, stood moved in contemplation of the abrupt and unforeseen "ends of time" that catastrophe brings. Amongst the excavated ruins I stood silently before the casts of crouching, unsuspecting humans, now forever ghosts of time stopped by ash. While the calendar year end is neither traumatic nor an apocalypse of ultimate end, the last day of December nonetheless marks a transition from one standardized passage of time to the beginning of another. A calendar marks the end of then which has become now, and as such, deserves our reflection.
I wrote last time about defining the essential values in our lives to help streamline personal goals and time management, and in a larger context, help us live lives that have meaning to us. To end flopping from one day to the next, so busy and overwhelmed we struggle and hurry on to the next. Defining what is essential entails identifying also what is not. And in a modern fast-paced world where multitasking is deemed both desirable and beneficial, leaving things out feels terribly threatening. What if that one meeting we do not attend is the lost career-making opportunity? What if that skipped school party becomes the cupcake-omission that keynotes the PTA Hall of Infamy? Would one more hour at the gym forever end the battle with buffet pants and launch a triathlon career? What if the bedskirts (does anybody still use bedskirts?) hide dust bunnies the size of small gerbils, which in truth mark failed character? The vacation or charity project, handwritten thank you notes or paperless post, canning garden or poetry retreat, Boy Scout den leader or work project chair? Major and minor, the muses call.
As you contemplate your personal New Year ambitions, hopes and dreams, think in terms of what is essentially important to you. Leo Babauta recommends in "The Power of Less" that we create self-guidelines for everything from how often to read and answer email to writing blogs, posts on Twitter; that we protect days for focused creative work versus time set aside for necessary inbox tasks. Give your seedling dreams room to grow by weeding out the choking distractions. Nurture and allow the light in. Embrace a set of work and life limitations, and then commit to honest enforcement of the fence-lines and watch your progress toward your goals flourish.
Personally this means I set aside days for writing long from those for short projects. I used to be all about work, and home, partnering, parenting chores and challenges. I would ping back between those two poles like a Yo-Yo, sometimes knocking myself out in a tangle of well-intentioned string. Now? I group priorities together, creating time carved from things less important in my life. Streamline the quotidien, the ordinary. Think about all the moments that make up the day and choose how to spend them.
We'll never know which use of time is "best." Only that choices must be made. Time, as the year end reminds us, is both finite and passing even as we speak. Not everything can be done, not all of what life has to offer can be sampled, not all worthy goals met. Life becomes quite simply about the choices we give our hearts to. So give well.
December 25, 2012
Back to Essentials
Most of us lead lives filled with too much stuff, too much information, too many papers, too much to do, too much clutter. Unfortunately, our time and space is limited, and having too much of everything is like trying to cram a library into a box: It can't be done, it's hard to enjoy the books, and sooner or later the box will break. Our problem is living without limits... Once you've learned to set limits, you will learn to make the most of those limits - by choosing the essential and then simplifying. That's when the power of limits can really be seen: When limits force you to reduce yourself to only the essentials.
~ from "The Power of Less," Leo Babauta
There is a nifty blog my med school daughter (the supreme time organizer) turned me onto awhile back, written by life style and efficiency guru Leo Babauta, called Zen Habits (ZenHabits.net). In the quest for making that which is limited (time, effort, resources) go as far and as efficiently and applied as meaningfully as possible, Leo developed a system of limits, focus, and task management tools that enabled him to do accomplish multiple goals as diverse as lose weight, become a marathoner, build one of the top 50 blogs in the world, double his income, become an early riser, write and sell two books, eliminate debt, complete two triathlons, etc. , and do so with quality time for self and family. His system, which I began reading over the holidays in the book "The Power of Less," is fairly straightforward: set limitations, choose the essential, simplify, focus, create habits, start small. One goal at a time.
Easier said than done, right? Of course, philosophically the idea of identifying and choosing to focus and organize one's life around the essential is very compelling. We all want what we think of it as happiness or success via prioritizing and follow-through. But as the author suggests, in today's age of relentless information flow and exchange, of continuous multitasking to ever expanding sets of goals, and generally over-committed professional and family life, "How do you know what's essential? That's the key question. Once you know that, the rest is easy." Babauta goes on to say that once we've identified the essential, then reducing projects, tasks, streams of information, commitments, clutter, etc., is a process of employing disciplined elimination in small increments and the formation of new habits that support life with LESS done BETTER.
I sit here at a desk that on the face of it fails one "The Power of Less" rule: de-clutter the desk. My manuscript in process, bent and dog-eared notes, edited print pages and research sit to the left of my laptop, and on the right, my inbox overflows with holiday shopping receipts, stacked sales tax records for my accountant, online bills to pay, and a slew of year-end solicitations from everyone from AAA to The Wildlife Federation Fund. Yes, my desk, where I've already misplaced my cell phone (under that pile of pen, book, coffee cup and notepad?) is an Epic Fail in the streamlined and prioritization department. Like most of us, my desk is both work space and bill-paying space, as well as home-planning space. How do I identify the essential? And therefore limit the inundation of things to do?
I thought about this question of essentials late Christmas night over a Macallan sitting in my living room, gazing reflectively at the beauty that is a decorated Christmas tree. The college kids were asleep, my husband away on call at the hospital, the fire crackling and falling to a low red glow in the stone fireplace. At that moment, the essential, as it always does at Christmas, seemed crystal clear to me: Number one, gathering together with the ones you love. Check, time for family. And then, thinking of my husband who had curtailed his holiday to return to the hospital, I realized that work, even on Christmas Day is important. Check, adequate time and rest for excellence in work (hence a nap, and an early holiday dinner with family). As I worked my way through the thoughts that presented themselves, from the importance of rest for the one kid post-surgery, and the importance of love to the kid with a new "significant other" coalescing on the horizon, the importance of meaning in occupation (that work matters, is done well, and results in feelings of security, e.g. providing for family), dedication to continuous acts of charity and kindness, to thoughts of professional contentment and the value of peer recognition and teamwork... Well, other than including fun and recreation, time to play, hadn't I just covered my basics?
Here then is where I will start working to eliminate the clutter in my world: everything from overwhelming on-slaughts of data and email to calendar commitments, right down to the essentials. My list looks like this:
Together time with family
Rest
Love
Acts of charity and kindness
Excellence in work
Meaning in occupation
Professional contentment
Time to play
What are your essentials? I'll explore more in the next blog on my own personal steps toward limiting the extraneous to focus on my personally identified essentials. And if you're in the mood (and have the time!), do check out Leo's blog - ZenHabits.net.
~ from "The Power of Less," Leo Babauta
There is a nifty blog my med school daughter (the supreme time organizer) turned me onto awhile back, written by life style and efficiency guru Leo Babauta, called Zen Habits (ZenHabits.net). In the quest for making that which is limited (time, effort, resources) go as far and as efficiently and applied as meaningfully as possible, Leo developed a system of limits, focus, and task management tools that enabled him to do accomplish multiple goals as diverse as lose weight, become a marathoner, build one of the top 50 blogs in the world, double his income, become an early riser, write and sell two books, eliminate debt, complete two triathlons, etc. , and do so with quality time for self and family. His system, which I began reading over the holidays in the book "The Power of Less," is fairly straightforward: set limitations, choose the essential, simplify, focus, create habits, start small. One goal at a time.
Easier said than done, right? Of course, philosophically the idea of identifying and choosing to focus and organize one's life around the essential is very compelling. We all want what we think of it as happiness or success via prioritizing and follow-through. But as the author suggests, in today's age of relentless information flow and exchange, of continuous multitasking to ever expanding sets of goals, and generally over-committed professional and family life, "How do you know what's essential? That's the key question. Once you know that, the rest is easy." Babauta goes on to say that once we've identified the essential, then reducing projects, tasks, streams of information, commitments, clutter, etc., is a process of employing disciplined elimination in small increments and the formation of new habits that support life with LESS done BETTER.
I sit here at a desk that on the face of it fails one "The Power of Less" rule: de-clutter the desk. My manuscript in process, bent and dog-eared notes, edited print pages and research sit to the left of my laptop, and on the right, my inbox overflows with holiday shopping receipts, stacked sales tax records for my accountant, online bills to pay, and a slew of year-end solicitations from everyone from AAA to The Wildlife Federation Fund. Yes, my desk, where I've already misplaced my cell phone (under that pile of pen, book, coffee cup and notepad?) is an Epic Fail in the streamlined and prioritization department. Like most of us, my desk is both work space and bill-paying space, as well as home-planning space. How do I identify the essential? And therefore limit the inundation of things to do?
I thought about this question of essentials late Christmas night over a Macallan sitting in my living room, gazing reflectively at the beauty that is a decorated Christmas tree. The college kids were asleep, my husband away on call at the hospital, the fire crackling and falling to a low red glow in the stone fireplace. At that moment, the essential, as it always does at Christmas, seemed crystal clear to me: Number one, gathering together with the ones you love. Check, time for family. And then, thinking of my husband who had curtailed his holiday to return to the hospital, I realized that work, even on Christmas Day is important. Check, adequate time and rest for excellence in work (hence a nap, and an early holiday dinner with family). As I worked my way through the thoughts that presented themselves, from the importance of rest for the one kid post-surgery, and the importance of love to the kid with a new "significant other" coalescing on the horizon, the importance of meaning in occupation (that work matters, is done well, and results in feelings of security, e.g. providing for family), dedication to continuous acts of charity and kindness, to thoughts of professional contentment and the value of peer recognition and teamwork... Well, other than including fun and recreation, time to play, hadn't I just covered my basics?
Here then is where I will start working to eliminate the clutter in my world: everything from overwhelming on-slaughts of data and email to calendar commitments, right down to the essentials. My list looks like this:
Together time with family
Rest
Love
Acts of charity and kindness
Excellence in work
Meaning in occupation
Professional contentment
Time to play
What are your essentials? I'll explore more in the next blog on my own personal steps toward limiting the extraneous to focus on my personally identified essentials. And if you're in the mood (and have the time!), do check out Leo's blog - ZenHabits.net.
December 18, 2012
The Family Tableau
MUSEUM
by Robert Hass
On the morning of the K�the Kollwitz exhibit, a young man and woman come into the museum restaurant. She is carrying a baby; he carries the air-freight edition of the Sunday New York Times. She sits in a high-backed wicker chair, cradling the infant in her arms. He fills a tray with fresh fruit, rolls, and coffee in white cups and brings it to the table. His hair is tousled, her eyes are puffy. They look like they were thrown down into sleep and then yanked out of it like divers coming up for air. He holds the baby. She drinks coffee, scans the front page, butters a roll and eats it in their little corner in the sun. After a while, she holds the baby. He reads the Book Review and eats some fruit. Then he holds the baby while she finds the section of the paper she wants and eats fruit and smokes. They�ve hardly exchanged a look. Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with this equitable arrangement, and with the baby who cooperates by sleeping. All around them are faces K�the Kollwitz carved in wood of people with no talent or capacity for suffering who are suffering the numbest kinds of pain: hunger, helpless terror. But this young couple is reading the Sunday paper in the sun, the baby is sleeping, the green has begun to emerge from the rind of the cantaloupe, and everything seems possible.
It is the 19th of December. The Winter Solstice is in two days, the Christmas and New Year holidays pushing forward on the heels of a tough week of national loss. American families are in mourning, in confusion about what is and isn't the nature of the human heart. This morning I happened across this lovely, muted prose poem by Robert Haas, a poet of great gravitas and dignity I had the great good fortune to hear read from his work at Stanford during his tenure as United States Poet Laureate. Somehow in revisiting this poem ~ a poignant gentle sketch of a family outing ~ I came to my own sense of hope again. Of possibility that all of us will, in the passage of time, heal. And in the fullness of days, find peace once more in our hearts and possibility for goodness in the day.
Let us look to the warmth of family and friendship for the truth of the human spirit. Let us join hearts in these holidays and keep faith in goodness.
by Robert Hass
On the morning of the K�the Kollwitz exhibit, a young man and woman come into the museum restaurant. She is carrying a baby; he carries the air-freight edition of the Sunday New York Times. She sits in a high-backed wicker chair, cradling the infant in her arms. He fills a tray with fresh fruit, rolls, and coffee in white cups and brings it to the table. His hair is tousled, her eyes are puffy. They look like they were thrown down into sleep and then yanked out of it like divers coming up for air. He holds the baby. She drinks coffee, scans the front page, butters a roll and eats it in their little corner in the sun. After a while, she holds the baby. He reads the Book Review and eats some fruit. Then he holds the baby while she finds the section of the paper she wants and eats fruit and smokes. They�ve hardly exchanged a look. Meanwhile, I have fallen in love with this equitable arrangement, and with the baby who cooperates by sleeping. All around them are faces K�the Kollwitz carved in wood of people with no talent or capacity for suffering who are suffering the numbest kinds of pain: hunger, helpless terror. But this young couple is reading the Sunday paper in the sun, the baby is sleeping, the green has begun to emerge from the rind of the cantaloupe, and everything seems possible.
It is the 19th of December. The Winter Solstice is in two days, the Christmas and New Year holidays pushing forward on the heels of a tough week of national loss. American families are in mourning, in confusion about what is and isn't the nature of the human heart. This morning I happened across this lovely, muted prose poem by Robert Haas, a poet of great gravitas and dignity I had the great good fortune to hear read from his work at Stanford during his tenure as United States Poet Laureate. Somehow in revisiting this poem ~ a poignant gentle sketch of a family outing ~ I came to my own sense of hope again. Of possibility that all of us will, in the passage of time, heal. And in the fullness of days, find peace once more in our hearts and possibility for goodness in the day.
Let us look to the warmth of family and friendship for the truth of the human spirit. Let us join hearts in these holidays and keep faith in goodness.
December 13, 2012
The American Story: Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre
The world
was whole because
it shattered. When it shattered,
then we knew what it was.
~ from "Formaggio," Louise Gluck
Dear Friends,
This terrible massacre of school children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, outside Danbury, is still unfolding in its terrible details. I intended an entirely different blog today, but honestly, I find myself welling into tears at my desk. WHY? These innocent children, many of them among the very youngest, are dead. Eighteen confirmed as of this writing, but the numbers seem to keep climbing.
I cannot, as a mother, separate myself from the heartbreak and terror I know lies in the heart of each of the Sandy Hook Elementary families and teachers, their friends and relatives. Elementary schools are among our most close-knit education "families"...a dedicated community of educators, parent volunteers, and part-time librarians, language, art and gym instructors. The mission of elementary school is more than the teaching of learning fundamentals - it is also the encouragement of youngsters in early socialization skills: development of trust and comfort away from home, ease under the direction of unfamiliar adults, feeling safe in large groups. Sometimes the experience of school itself is a huge emotional and mental undertaking for the very young.
And then there are parents, who tremble on that first day and every day after they watch their children walk out the door on their way to school. We, who know our children are for the school day, solely in the safekeeping of others. How will any of us truly comprehend this horror come true - our worst nightmare? While I live in Washington, my own daughter went to school in Connecticut. We have dear friends there. Sandy Hook Elementary is every school. I do not know why this tragedy occurred here, or now. But I pray with all my heart for the families and faculty, staff and first responders. This is not the "American Story" we should be familiar with, but unfortunately, it is now the most common.
It is time to do something about gun control in America. Enough innocents have died at the hands of the violent. It is up to us to stop gun violence, in any way we can.
was whole because
it shattered. When it shattered,
then we knew what it was.
~ from "Formaggio," Louise Gluck
Dear Friends,
This terrible massacre of school children and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, outside Danbury, is still unfolding in its terrible details. I intended an entirely different blog today, but honestly, I find myself welling into tears at my desk. WHY? These innocent children, many of them among the very youngest, are dead. Eighteen confirmed as of this writing, but the numbers seem to keep climbing.
I cannot, as a mother, separate myself from the heartbreak and terror I know lies in the heart of each of the Sandy Hook Elementary families and teachers, their friends and relatives. Elementary schools are among our most close-knit education "families"...a dedicated community of educators, parent volunteers, and part-time librarians, language, art and gym instructors. The mission of elementary school is more than the teaching of learning fundamentals - it is also the encouragement of youngsters in early socialization skills: development of trust and comfort away from home, ease under the direction of unfamiliar adults, feeling safe in large groups. Sometimes the experience of school itself is a huge emotional and mental undertaking for the very young.
And then there are parents, who tremble on that first day and every day after they watch their children walk out the door on their way to school. We, who know our children are for the school day, solely in the safekeeping of others. How will any of us truly comprehend this horror come true - our worst nightmare? While I live in Washington, my own daughter went to school in Connecticut. We have dear friends there. Sandy Hook Elementary is every school. I do not know why this tragedy occurred here, or now. But I pray with all my heart for the families and faculty, staff and first responders. This is not the "American Story" we should be familiar with, but unfortunately, it is now the most common.
It is time to do something about gun control in America. Enough innocents have died at the hands of the violent. It is up to us to stop gun violence, in any way we can.
December 10, 2012
The 2012 Holiday Book Drawing
Thank you everyone! The 2012 December Holiday Book Drawing is concluded. Thank you to all the many entries from across our book-loving nation and from as far away as Australia and Canada! The winners were chosen at random by good old fashioned toss of names in a hat. (We're low tech over here. Blame the snow.)
Congratulations to the five lucky winners ~ Chelsea T. from Vancouver, B.C.; Mike P. of Baltimore, Maryland; Suzanna M. from Dallas, Texas; Ginger K. of Thousand Oaks, California; and Rebekkah S. from Bloomington, Indiana. Your signed three-book sets are on the way to you by post, gift-boxed. Happy reading, and Thank You All for entering the 2012 Holiday Giveaway Book Drawing!
Hopefully next year's drawing will include my newest novel! Best wishes and thanks a million for your encouragement and continued support of my writing.
xo Glenda
PS ~ Out my study window the birch lean into the first flakes of new snow as if they were whispers. Reminds me of this poem by Frost. Enjoy!
THE SOUND OF TREES
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
~ Robert Frost
Congratulations to the five lucky winners ~ Chelsea T. from Vancouver, B.C.; Mike P. of Baltimore, Maryland; Suzanna M. from Dallas, Texas; Ginger K. of Thousand Oaks, California; and Rebekkah S. from Bloomington, Indiana. Your signed three-book sets are on the way to you by post, gift-boxed. Happy reading, and Thank You All for entering the 2012 Holiday Giveaway Book Drawing!
Hopefully next year's drawing will include my newest novel! Best wishes and thanks a million for your encouragement and continued support of my writing.
xo Glenda
PS ~ Out my study window the birch lean into the first flakes of new snow as if they were whispers. Reminds me of this poem by Frost. Enjoy!
THE SOUND OF TREES
I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.
~ Robert Frost
