WRITING TOPIC – KINDS OF LOVE

  

Heart & Soul, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, on the hill behind the zendo, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

My sister-in-law told me about a book she’d recently received as a gift, The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman. It’s about the ways individuals express love. And the ways they like to have love expressed to them. What makes you feel loved?

On a recent 62 degree November day, I was taking a walk by the Susquehanna River with my mother, and we started talking about the subject of love. The lively discussion led to many questions.

What if the way you are able to give love is not appreciated by your partner or spouse? What if your partner or spouse doesn’t know what makes him or her feel loved? What about friends? Isn’t it important that they know the things that make you feel appreciated?

According to Chapman, there are 5 primary languages of love:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

               

Think about the things that make you feel loved. Are they acts of service. Thoughtfulness. Gratitude. Is quality time high on your list. How deep is the well. Half empty? Half full? To love we need to be able to both give and receive. How do you like to receive? How is learning to receive different than taking?

If you’re having a hard time answering, Chapman provides some clues, questions to ask yourself to help determine your primary language:

 1) What does your partner or spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply. The opposite is probably your love language.

 

2) What have you most often requested of your partner, spouse, or friends? That thing is the thing that will probably make you feel most loved.

3) In what way do you regularly express love to your partner, spouse, or friends? That method may also make you feel loved.

After answering the 3 questions above, pick up your pen and do three, 15-minute writing practices:

I feel loved when…

What hurts me the most is…

I know my friends care about me when…

  

    

The journey is discovery. Where would we be without love?

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, November 20th 2007

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Ann Patchett – On Truth, Beauty, & The Adventures Of “Opera Girl”

Writer’s Hands IV, hands of Bel Canto author, Ann Patchett, signing a copy of her latest book, Run, Fitzgerald Theater, downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Part I.

On a rainy October night, inside the haunted Fitzgerald Theater, Ann Patchett held the audience rapt. She has created a huge life for herself. A writer’s life. Awed by her confidence and poise, I was surprised to find she is also funny, and witty. Bel Canto was the novel that put her over the top. And earned her the alias, “Opera Girl.” But it was the memoir, Truth & Beauty, that drew me in.

My friend, Teri, read the book for one of Natalie Goldberg’s workshops. Then attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop last summer (where much of the book takes place). She suggested I read it. Along with Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face.

Suddenly, it was October, and Teri, Liz, and I grabbed dinner at Mickey’s Diner before walking across Exchange Street into the bustling, sold-out crowd at the Fitzgerald.

We found split seats tucked way in the left corner, right under the balcony. Opening with an airline joke about her lost luggage, Ann Patchett sat across from Kerri Miller wearing black jeans, black boots, and a burnt orange scarf. Casual. It didn’t matter. Her comments on grief and loss stilled the room. It was her grieving process for Lucy that became Truth & Beauty. There was no tour when the book came out. She seemed happy to talk about the healing.

Part II.

At times, Ann had the audience in stitches. Other moments, there were tears. Later she would joke with us, pose for a few photos, and sign our books. She seemed glad to be there.

I listened with hungry ears. Teri and I nudged each other anytime we heard some snippet of wisdom, another link in the chain of making our way as writers. Liz took notes in the seat behind us (thanks, Liz!). And every once in a while we would explode into laughter at one of Ann’s jokes.

I soaked it all up. What did I learn?

• She doesn’t have to write every day. She has no rituals or rules.
• She doesn’t write between books. She rests.
• After writing her books, she lets them go. She doesn’t read them again. She doesn’t even remember Bel Canto. She’s moved on.
• The idea that’s cookin’ may not be the book at all.
• Writing a novel is about faking it with authority.
• Two words: pen pal. She has close pen pals.
• A new definition of pornography was forged when Clemson University (in South Carolina) strenuously objected to Truth & Beauty being on the freshman class syllabus, claiming it was filled with “pornography.” There was a protest; Ann needed a bodyguard to make her speech.
• Profound, close relationships between two women scare a lot of people.
• Run, Bambi, Run!
• The center cannot hold; the falcon cannot hear the falconer.
• When you write a new book and go on tour, people really want you to talk about the last book because that’s the one they last read. (In this case, the last two books.)
• She met her best friend and writer, Elizabeth McCracken, during the living of Truth & Beauty. She trusts her with her life.
• She writes 98 percent for herself, 2 percent for Elizabeth, and no one else.
• You can’t put love on the scales.
• In her mid 30’s, she had no knowledge of opera, had never been to an opera, had never listened to an opera. But after Bel Canto, when something goes on in the world of opera, The New York Times calls “Opera Girl.”
• Research brings her a lot of joy. She hates magic. Why? Magic is the most misogynist art form in the world
• No experience matches the moment she finished her first published novel, The Patron Saint Of Liars.
• She was two blocks away from the World Trade Center when it went down. She was holding someone’s hand. 

Part III.

              

The Fitzgerald Theater (Outside), night of Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto and Truth & Beauty: A Friendship, on MPR’s Talking Volumes, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

What I want to say is that Ann was inspiring. She didn’t pull any punches. She was at the same time vulnerable and strong. Very strong. She knows how to take the criticism of her readers, and the country. She mentors others, gives back. But also seems like she guards her time with her life.

The day after we saw her at the Fitz, she flew to Dallas. Or somewhere in the heart of Texas. The tour went on. I smiled when I thought about her missing luggage. I wondered if Run would do well. But I could tell it wouldn’t matter all that much. She’s already moved on. She’s looking in the eyes of a stranger, waiting for the next book. She’s doing what she’s wanted to do since she was 5 years old. She never wavered for a moment. She’s a writer.

In the moment of our death, we are closest to our life. And the person who is with us at that moment is the person that we desperately need. Because they’re the only person who really understands what we’ve been through.

  – Ann Patchett, Fitzgerald Theater, October 16th, 2007

Part IV.

Post Script:  Don’t take my word for any of this. To hear Ann speak about ichthyology, magic, Bel Canto, bodyguards, Opera Girl (and to find out whose hand she was holding), listen to her talk in its entirety at the link below (you might even recognize a familiar voice during the audience Q&A):

Live appearance: Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Patchett discussed “Run” with Kerri Miller and the Talking Volumes audience at the Fitzgerald Theater.

Related links you might enjoy:

Seattle Arts and Lectures: Elizabeth McCracken & Ann Patchett
Novelists, 5th Avenue Theatre, January 10, 2000

StarTribune Article on Ann Patchett
Setting Her Own Pace, October 2007
(you may have to register and log in to read)

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

-related to posts: WRITING TOPIC: WHAT HAVE YOU LOST & F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Birthday Celebration

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PRACTICE – Lost – 15min

I don’t often lose things. Keys, gloves, hats, mittens, I usually own them for life. I don’t know why that is. I tend to be pretty grounded and track on a minute by minute basis. It’s changed as I’ve gotten older. I have more spaciness. I attribute it to hormonal shifts in the brain and the body.

Last December, after I moved from an apartment I’d lived in for 14 years, I lost track of everything. I purged and got rid of things quickly, off to Goodwill and ARC and Salvation Army. Art studio items were boxed up and moved to storage. I didn’t know what I was living with and what I’d given away or stacked into the garage.

I still don’t know. I recently drove over near the lake to grab a few boxes out of storage. I ended up with about 10 piled inside the Camry, and now stacked by the piano in our living room. In two of them, I found the documents I needed. One bent box, with my scribbled handwriting of 10 years ago, contained a stack of old journals. I’m thinking I may toss them or burn them. I need to see what’s on the page.

Before I did writing practice, my journals were filled with intellectual analyzing and the day-to-day trivia of love and life. So what’s changed? A lot. I can’t stand to read the old stuff. But it does have details that I might use in my memoir. It’s just so boring. I guess this could be considered boring, too. But usually by the end of a practice, I’ve gotten down to some little tidbit that I didn’t know about myself before.

Losing face. The mask. I’ve felt a lot of shame over the course of living. It’s been a long haul to turn it around into confidence. To let go. To know that the choices I make and the things I do are not me. They are choices I make and things I do. Many women feel some form of shame. I know because I hear them talk about it or act from that place in their heart. I recognize it. If you know what to look for, no one can hide.

I often wished to be lost. To never have to grow up. The better I feel about day-to-day living, the more fond I am of the notion of adult. It’s not necessarily easy to think the way artists and writers think. To pull the grub into the heart and spit it back out in words or images that ping the feeling in others. You’ve got to be willing to take in all the crap life has to dish out.

I’ve lost my way a few times. Felt completely ungrounded. Like when I was 21 and moved to Montana. One day I was in Pennsylvania. The next I was flying into Missoula. The only ground I could find were the mountains that captured me the minute I stepped off the plane, held me, and never let go. I still dream about them sometimes, especially the Bitterroots where I spent time stripping logs and digging foundations for the cabins my friends were building.

When I see photographs of myself at that time, I have this lost look in my eyes. I don’t recognize the 20-year-old body. What happened to that? I’m staring at the camera, eyes clear and hazel blue. But where are they going?

Here. They were going here. To the place I’ve landed. The last 10 years have been more about letting go and letting in a bigger life. I didn’t think I deserved a bigger life. What do I think now? There are givers and takers. And they live side by side. I’ve given away too much. But no regrets.

The wind’s whipping through the naked oaks outside the window. I’m waiting for the contractor to come power wash the deck in preparation for sanding, shoring up, and painting. There is a wobble in the pine rails and floorboards. But the foundation is solid. The peeling paint is tinted from the green of arsenic. The contractor said that’s what they used to use to preserve building wood. He said arsenic is not used anymore. But the chemical they’ve come up with to replace it is no better.

That’s the way I feel this morning. Wobbly and solid. Not lost. Not found. I’m here on the couch beside Pants who is curled up in a pile of lime green and hot pink tissue paper. It was wrapped around the Halloween bouquet a few days ago. He quietly cleans himself. The paper crinkles under his ear. It seems to comfort him. Cats never seem lost. They know to follow their instincts. I’m learning to listen.

-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – WHAT HAVE YOU LOST

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July Guests On red Ravine

We’re well into Fall, and our July guests have rotated off the Guest Writers & Featured Artists widget on the sidebar. You can still locate their pieces by typing their names into our Search bar. Or by clicking on Guestwriter or Guestartist under Contributors on the sidebar.

Thanks to our guests on red Ravine who support and expand our efforts to create a dynamic writing and art community blog.

Here are our July guests and links to their pieces:

• Shira, From A Poetry Virgin
• Annelise, Everyone Has A Story
• Laura Stokes, Dreaming Of Frida Kahlo

If you’d like to be a guest on red Ravine, read our Submission Guidelines For Writers & Artists. The link is on the sidebar under How To Submit. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at info@redravine.com anytime. Thanks for reading!

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, November 2nd, 2007

-related to post, Where To Find Our Guests

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WRITING TOPIC – WHAT HAVE YOU LOST

What Have You Lost, Rainpainting Series, outside the Fitzgerald Theater, downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, night of Ann Patchett, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

If you want to know someone, truly know someone, ask them about the things they have lost. No matter how long it’s been. It doesn’t matter. The things we have lost stay with us.

These are the words of Ann Patchett, author of The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, and Truth & Beauty: A Friendship. She wrote the memoir Truth & Beauty to grieve the loss of her friend, Lucy Grealy. The book was her grieving process.

What are the things you have lost? Have you ever lost face, your faith, time. When did you lose your virginity? What about your innocence. Did you lose your childhood, your dreams, someone close to your heart? Did you lose your keys the day you hiked the ocean cliffs of an Oregon beach and were left stranded in the dark.

Make a list of the things you have lost. Choose 1 or 2 items off of your list and do a 15 minute writing practice on each. Let yourself grieve. Take the time. What do you have to lose?

Grief is a debt you owe. After you pay, you can get to the joy.

-Ann Patchett on Talking Volumes at the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007

-posted on red Ravine Sunday, October 28th, 2007

-related to post, The Parking Is Free

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PRACTICE – I Find Humor – 15min

I find humor in ridiculous things like the Great Pumpkin Catapult or singing moldy oldies with Liz in the morning when I’m spooning French Roast into the Braun. I crack up after belting out dreadful tunes from the seventies, something by Gilbert O’Sullivan or Bread, or rocking out, jammin’ to Stevie Wonder in Happy Feet.

I smiled the whole way through a documentary Liz taped off PBS on Les Paul. The way he invented machines to overdub tapes, recorded in every room in his house with his wife, Mary Ford, and, of course, made guitar after guitar with big bodied, amplified sound. Without Les Paul there would be no rock and roll.

Did you know he’s a Midwesterner, born in Waukesha, Wisconsin; his last name was Polfuss before it was Paul. He’s worth millions, saved every guitar, every recording machine, every headset and microphone. The collection will be in the Smithsonian. He’s in his 90’s, still going strong. He loves to laugh and smile and play his guitar for audiences for a pittance. He loves life. That makes me laugh. I want to be near people who love life.

I don’t find humor in jokes. I never have. Riddles and rhymes that crack other people up are lost on me. I just don’t find jokes funny. Half the time they seem crazy or dumb to me. The other half, I probably don’t get it and stare at the person with my face curled up in a dumbfounded question mark. That’s me. The jokeless wonder. I think I still turned out okay.

I laugh out loud when Liz and I dance all crazy across the kitchen floor. This is a regular occurrence. So you can guess, I laugh a lot. I laugh when I play fetch with Mr. Stipeypants. I knew he was okay when I found his furry red ball, his trophy, in his food dish yesterday.

I smile when I watch the moon rise through the oaks. Liz called on the way to work to tell me the full moon tonight will be the closest to the Earth of any in 2007. The movement of planets, moons, and stars makes me smile, connects me to something way bigger than me. I like paying attention to when Mercury is in retrograde (right now). Retrograde, moving around the sun in an orbit opposite to earth. Don’t sign any contracts. Expect communication delays. Back up your computer.

A friend sent me an email a few days ago letting me know that mischievous Mercury, messenger of the god Jupiter, the smallest planet nearest the sun, was up to his old tricks, turning his face counterclockwise, contorting what normally travels with godspeed to a likely destination. I don’t laugh at myself enough. I work every day to let go.

When darkness falls, I’ll watch the Moon’s billowy skirt slide through crackling, clinging leaves along golden rayed bundles of clouds over the deck. I’ll wish I had a tripod to screw on the digital Canon body. I’ll sigh, decide to skip the photos, and enjoy the Earth in shadowy descent.

-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – A LAUGHING MATTER

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The Parking Is Free

Mickey’s Diner In The Rain, Rainpainting Series, outside Mickey’s Diner near the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s been a long couple of weeks. Mr. Stripeypants has started to eat hard food again and seems to be on the mend. (Thanks for all the good energy any of you might have sent his way.) I’m up writing and preparing a post for tomorrow. But for tonight, easy does it.

Mickey’s Diner In The Rain was shot outside Mickey’s Diner late last Tuesday night after Ann Patchett’s talk at the Fitzgerald Theater a few blocks away. If you’re around these parts, you might want to catch a bite to eat.

Otherwise, it was quite a lively day at the bottom of red Ravine. Stop by any time. The parking is free.

I wanted to keep her as much for myself as for her. We had a wonderful time that visit. Even when Lucy was devastated or difficult, she was the person I knew best in the world, the person I was the most comfortable with. Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t even realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.

But Lucy was never going to live in Nashville. Even if it might have saved her life, it wasn’t the life she wanted.

Dearest Anngora, my cynical pirate of the elusive heart, my self-winding watch, my showpiece, my shoelace, how are you?

-from Ann Patchett’s memoir, Truth & Beauty, A Friendship, Harper-Collins Publishers, 2004

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

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Almond Joy (Not That You Asked)

 

Writer’s Hands III, hands of Candyfreak author, Steve Almond, signing a copy of his latest book, (Not That You Asked) Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s late and I’m tired. But I wanted to write a short note. I just got home from Thai dinner, stimulating conversation, and late night writing practice with two of my writing friends, Teri and Bob. Bob drove all the way from Kansas City, Missouri, to visit and write with us.

And last night, Liz, Bob, Teri, and I went to the Minneapolis Central Library to see Candyfreak author, Steve Almond, read from his new book (Not That You Asked) Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions. He was grounded, stimulating, generous with his time, and did I mention, fun? (Check out The Original Smarties Necklace wound around his wrist as a bracelet!)

There will be more to come about this author on red Ravine. But for now, get out and hear Steve read and speak. Buy his books. You’ll be inspired and motivated to action. And best of all, you’ll go home wanting to write. And change the world.

Thanks to Steve, Teri, Liz, and Bob for making the night a memorable one. Without the support of other writers, what do we have? And, Bob, have a safe journey home. And don’t forget the magic word – Hemingway.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, October 12th, 2007

-related to posts, Homage To A Candy Freak and WRITING TOPIC – CANDY FREAK

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PRACTICE – Sleep – 15min

Sleep, the Temptress and the tempted. She doesn’t come easily for me these days. There were times when sleep was a blessing, refuge of the depressed. Then there are dreams. I don’t always remember them. But lately, they’ve been restless and disturbed. The things in which I’ve put my trust are rocky and double-edged.

Last night, I woke up at 1:30am, restless and worried. The cats were tossing and turning, too. Kiev and Chaco had been to the vet, Dr. Tiffany, in the late afternoon before supper, hot vegetable soup. Kiev was a doll. Chaco, with his oily black coat, howled the way Siamese do, lashed out, hissed, and threatened to bite. But he is harmless, a survivor of abusive previous owners.

The fairy thin vet assistant grabbed him by the scruff, then tied on the black muzzle with pink shoestring laces that Chaco ripped off with a single paw in two seconds flat.

Domestic animals may not remember short-term inconsistencies or the emotional ups and downs of their owners. But they remember long-term abuse. It’s stored in their bodies. And as much as Liz tried to comfort Chaco, he sat through Kiev’s temperature check and yearly shots, then dove into old anxiety, emerald eyes splayed wide, as she placed him on the cold stainless steel table.

Mr. Stripeypants had gone to the vet earlier this year. So he stayed at home. Waited, nostrils to the windowpane. And when Kiev and Chaco returned, he sniffed and smelled and growled at them. The scent of squirty needles and alcohol and oozing medicine.

And that ties in with the book I am almost finished with, Ann Patchett’s Truth & Beauty. She races through the latter chapters of her friend Lucy’s addicted and chaotic frenzy. And I think of the ways that addictions plague artists and writers. Recovery offers hope. Addiction cycles around again. It’s inevitable.

Writers go to places that others don’t want to go. They are willing to look at the good, the bad, the ugly of human existence and write about it, so the details of our living history are not forgotten. And I wonder why it is I can’t sleep.

I dream of reams of money floating down from the sky and read how Ann and Lucy had more than enough money with New York parties and scholarly literature awards. A temporary balm, it didn’t matter in the end.

Writing will not make you happy. Or save you from anything. It only offers the comfort of a moment of captured truth – your truth. But back to sleep. How did I stray so far off track? I don’t count sheep.

Kiev and Chaco finally got to sleep and I rocked the bed, boing, boing, turning over and over, leaning up softly against the warm back and hands that sheltered and slowed the spinning in my head. Finally, I grabbed a warm finger, turned over on my side, crawled into a fetal position, and leapt into the next dream.

I was standing in front of a classroom, talking to a group of students about how writing will not save you; I was rattled, a skewed version of art imitating life.

And then, buzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the alarm with the microchip that connects to a satellite clock somewhere in the snowy mountains of Colorado beeped through my brain. And I rose to the dark Fall Minnesota morning.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

-from Topic post, Writing Topic – Counting Sheep

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3043 – What’s Left Behind

3043 – What’s Left Behind, inside what used to be Orr Books, Hennepin Avenue, Uptown, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

While walking to dinner in Uptown a few weeks ago, I snapped a few photos of the shadowy insides of 3043 Hennepin Avenue, last location of the (almost) 40-year-old Orr Books.

The independent Minneapolis bookstore closed last summer. Read a full account of its closing in the related post, What Happened To Orr Books?

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, October 7th, 2007

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Natalie Goldberg – 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind

After listening to Natalie Goldberg’s new interview on ThoughtCast, ybonesy and I wanted to pass the information along to our readers. But we first wanted to take a moment to reiterate our gratitude for the teachings that Natalie has passed down to us. Our vision for red Ravine was born out of our writing practice and years of study with her.

Natalie invented writing practice. And in the interview, she talks about how Writing Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within broke a paradigm about writing. It started a revolution in the way we practice writing. The world was listening. Since 1986 the book has sold over one million copies and been translated into fourteen languages.

I listened to the interview again last night as I was preparing to write this post. Jenny Attiyeh interviewed Natalie in her home in Santa Fe. Natalie seems both relaxed and energetic. And ybonesy and I were talking about how good it is to hear her voice when she talks about confidence, building a strong writing spine, and learning to trust your own mind.

But I think I learn even more when she discusses her relationship to failure, success, loneliness, continuing to love after betrayal, and her study of Zen.

Writing practice is not Zen. But it is rooted in Zen. And Zen is a 2000-year-old study of the mind. Writing practice is the study of your own mind. And when we read literature, we are studying the minds of other writers. These are the things Natalie has taught us.

red Ravine is not just about writing practice. But writing practice is part of the structure of red Ravine. And something we are proud to pass along. We are grateful. We are part of the writing lineage.

And that’s why I have taped to the computer screen in front of me three things Natalie learned from Katagiri Roshi and now passes along to her students:

• Continue under all circumstances
• Don’t be tossed away
• Make positive effort for the good

Deep Bows all around.

Writer’s Hands II, Natalie Goldberg
signing a copy of Top Of My Lungs,
Taos, New Mexico, July 2007,
photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey.
All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

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Somewhere Buried Deep

Somewhere Buried Deep, Rainpainting Series, outside the Parkway Theater in the rain, September 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

First Thoughts

somewhere buried deep
within the fire of second choices,
first thoughts

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, September 28th, 2007

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PRACTICE – Letting Go – 15min

I’m letting go, letting go, letting go. I want to let go of the need to control. Let go, let go, let go.

I’m letting go of sorrow. There is a way that it haunts me. Fear. I want to let go of fear. I lived much of my life that way. Fearful to walk in the crowded world. I am afraid I will fail. It doesn’t matter how many good things come along to support me on my path. I’m afraid I will fail. That’s it, QM. It’s not success that haunts you. It is failure.

Thin-skinned and thickheaded. Keep at your craft. Practice. I had dinner with another writer at Saigon restaurant tonight. And from Pudd’nhead Wilson, she told me this paraphrased quote – most people say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I say, put all your eggs in one basket and carefully watch them. She said she interpreted it to mean put your ass on the line for something and then give it your all. And then I smiled because I knew she was saying something we’d learned from Natalie – to put your ass on the line for something – anything – it doesn’t have to be writing.

“Anything” is whatever thing you have passion for. “Anything” takes courage and guts. “Anything” will not necessarily make you happy. But that “anything”  – give it your all.

And then we talked about stories from the Fair and developing characters in fiction writing and the insanity of credit card companies (not related) and going to see Steve Almond read in October. And I had iced tea (but I longed for sweet tea) that I poured from a stainless steel steeping pot over crackling ice, and fried rice with little bits of green peas and tiny whole shrimp that I ate with chopsticks. And to-die-for spring rolls with little flecked shreds of white daikon ribbons and wondered, have I had enough?

The blog has become a practice. It could not survive without community. What would be the point? I don’t want to write to hear myself talk. I write to be heard. I write to develop my voice. To know who I am.

I want to let go of the frightening way I keep telling myself I can’t do it. And then I feel lazy and start comparing myself to others. Comparing my insides to other people’s outsides. And then there’s a black hole where my heart used to be. But these days I fill it with all that electric energy created from everything I’m letting go of. And the sum total could fill a moon crater. And what is left is just me.

Just me – and that basket of eggs.

-15 minute handwritten writing practice, Thursday night, September 13th, 2007, after pondering Visions

-Fortune cookie from Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant after dinner with my friend: You are inclined to come up with unconventional solutions.

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, September 14th, 2007

-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – “I WANT TO LET GO OF …”

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Mary Oliver – On Paying Attention

Part I:

It’s Tuesday evening. I’m not inspired. When I feel this way, I look to other writers and artists to pull me up. We’re all in this together. No need to compete. There is room for everyone. I’m a strong believer in abundance. I feel a spiritual obligation to pay it forward.

I’m thinking about last May. Me, Liz, and two of our friends met for dinner at Acadia Cafe . We were just finishing our meals, when it started to pour. We ran across Nicollet Avenue through the pounding rain (without umbrellas), and sloshed across the parking lot, dodging puddles.

When we finally slipped into a crack between two open doors, we were soaked to the bone: stringy hair, dripping palms, wringing wet. In the soggy line, we handed the smiling ushers our tickets, and stepped into an architectural dream. The place was packed, buzzing with energy. I’ve been meaning to write about that night ever since. But I just didn’t know what to say.

Sometimes things have to sit inside a while. I have to hold them tight to me. Until I know what I’ve got.

Angle, pipe organ, stained glass, inside Plymouth Congregational Church, night of Mary Oliver, May 7th, 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. 

Part II:

After a glowing introduction, and with a half-smirk that never left her face, Mary Oliver slowly walked up to the podium at Plymouth Congregational Church. Steady and sure, she had me from the first step. She was funny, witty, wise, and sometimes sarcastic. She made me laugh, something I highly value in a writer. She seemed to have lived a long, good life – a life not without sorrow.

She woke me up.

Liz took a few notes that night in a black, 8×10 sketchbook she had hidden deep in her pack. I asked her if I could take a look at it tonight, to help me unearth buried treasure. I chuckled when I saw a little thumb-sized pen and ink sketch of Mary Oliver in Liz’s notebook, near the left corner, by the spiral binding.

It’s a great reproduction of the way Mary looked that night. I wish I could scan and post it. I carry everything the poet said in my heart. But there is something about looking at handwritten lists, thin-lined sketches, and short words on a long page, that jogs the memory.

At the top of the toothy, unlined paper was a list the four of us made, things we wanted to do: go camping together again, hang with pre-Dr. Ruth (the name of one of our friends), ask questions at the end of Mary Oliver, practice pranayama (i.e. don’t forget to breathe), always carry a mint

At the bottom were shards of memory, dots connecting the thin, wispy lines of Mary Oliver to snippets of words from the past.

Part III:

Mary Oliver, on the many poems dedicated to the dog, Percy:

• dogs remind us of the joy of the unexamined life
• dogs (pets) teach us to appreciate what we’ve lost; it’s the other life we no longer have that we must cherish

On advice for writing students:

• it’s all in the way you live your life
• be disciplined
• pay attention!
• cultivate astonishment and tell about it
• never use a computer
• lose your drafts, they are only learning material

On poetry

• poetry carries stories of us, community, culture, nation
• poetry is one of the bedrocks of culture
• poetry helps us feel
• poetry keeps the good stories going and makes us human – from Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person by Mary C. Richards

On being sustained in difficult times:

• reach to be sustained
• have faith
• read other poems, other poets
• remember life is a gift
• love and work
• embrace the natural world

On writing:

• keep it simple and clear
• accessible, no more than what you need
• have fun cutting away
• write fast, 30 or 40 drafts

On the podium:

• “Oh, what a nice podium. How nice for the preachers.”

On titles:

• “I have trouble with titles – there’s a Spring in every book.”

Epilogue: 

           

           –Writer’s Hands, hands of Mary Oliver, signing a copy of Thirst,
            May 2007, Minneapolis, Minnesota, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey.
            All rights reserved.

At the end of her epic reading, we went out to the lobby to buy books for Mary Oliver to sign. I purchased a CD of Mary reading At Blackwater Pond. Liz purchased Owls and Other Fantasies. We had regretfully left Thirst at home.

Liz walked up to the table, and opened Owls to an unconventional page for signing. Mary paused, a little taken aback. Liz was quick to recover. “I like this image,” she said.

“Did you know it’s a photo of a feather?” Mary asked. Liz said, “Oh, no, I didn’t. That’s amazing.”

There was a pause while Mary ran her pen across the page. I watched from the sidelines. Liz smiled and said, “My Mom’s an Oliver. I like to think we’re related.”

Mary glowed with an impish grin, handed Liz the book, leaned forward, and I could have sworn she winked when she said, “Let’s say we are.”

– Mary Oliver – On Paying Attention posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

-thanks to WomenSpirit, The Loft Literary Center, and Plymouth Congregational Church for sponsoring Mary Oliver’s visit to Minneapolis on May 7th, 2007

-related to post, The Uses Of Sorrow – What Is It About Obituaries

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Where To Find Our Guests

What have we done with them? Stuck them in closets? The backyard? Where, oh, where are red Ravine guest writers and artists?

Well, we keep a sidebar widget — Guest Writers & Featured Artists — that has guests from the past three months. Guests whose posts are older than three months are rotated off the widget. You can still locate their pieces, however, by clicking on either the Guestwriter or Guestartist link under the Contributors sidebar widget. It’s a bit confusing, yes, but given the limitations of our WordPress template, it’s at least workable.

So, our April guests are now located within the Contributors widget, and come August 1, our May guests will be there, too. Stop in and say hello once in a while. Otherwise it gets lonely in there.

And, just to remind you how brilliant, exciting, and provocative our guests are, here are links to our April sojourners:

• Judith Ford, 25 Reasons I Write
• Laurie L., Til Death Do Us Part
• dzvayehi, Fuchsia High Tops
• Teri Blair, Continue Under All Circumstances

Also, while we’re on the topic of Guest Writers & Featured Artists, red Ravine will soon be coming out with new submission guidelines so we can continue to solicit and publish writing and art from friends and strangers alike — kindred spirits of all stripes. Watch for those guidelines in the coming weeks. And if you just can’t wait until then, drop us a line at info@redravine.com anytime to find out how you can become a guest on red Ravine.

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A Conversation Between Friends

-Sunflowers, July 2007, growers market, Albuquerque, NM, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

ybonesy: What is it about being able to hang out in person with someone who you normally do so much with — write, start a blog, plan and produce — via telephone and email?

QuoinMonkey: Oh, it was such a relief to be able to just sit and have a cup of Joe on the patio in the morning, instead of having to plan for different schedules and time zones. I also got to see your expressions and your smile. And the space where you live. It was so relaxed.

yb: Yeah, I felt the same way! We never seem to have time to just hang out, get to know each other better. Although, after writing with you for how many years now, I feel I know a lot *about* you. Is that the same as knowing you, though?

QM: That’s the question of the century. I used to think you could know someone through writing practice. But all you really know is the inner workings of their mind. Not who they are day-to-day. That’s what made it so great to be able to hang out together in the same town. And to do day-to-day things, as well as planning for the future of red Ravine.

yb: I’m glad you met my family and vice versa. They liked you a lot. The candy surprises you left the girls helped ;-). Really, though, Jim doesn’t get to talk motorcycles with any of my other friends. I’m curious, after “hearing” about them all these years through my writing, are they what you expected?

QM:  LOL. That Liz, she was so thoughtful to remind me to bring a little something for the girls. I loved talking motorcycles with Jim. He’s so knowledgeable and hands-on. If we lived in the same town, I’d sure love to take the bikes out sometime. I know from experience that my Honda Rebel can even keep up with a Harley!

Your family is a delight – even better than the way I pictured them from your writing. Honestly, I had a pretty good idea about each one of them from the details of your writing practices over the years. But now the visual is grounded in something solid. A whole new realm.

yb: It was good for them to get to know you, too. I just wish you could have stayed longer. I would have liked to do some writing practice with you. This is the first time we’ve been together in person where we didn’t do writing practice, right?

QM: Right, I kept thinking we’d have time to practice. But it took us quite a while just to catch up on my week in Taos and your week at Ghost Ranch. I think we were both so excited about our work. And then there was the need to do some planning for the blog. Next time, I’d make it a 3-day weekend, if you could stand me that long. 8)

yb: Absolutely!! Hey, I realized when I dropped you off at the airport that you were going to be starved by the time you boarded your plane. I should have sent you with plums from the grower’s market, at least. Did you get to eat at the airport?

QM: Ah, the grower’s market was great. Everything went like clockwork that day, didn’t it? I checked my baggage and went straight to the gate. There was a Quiznos right there. But after I stood in line, I realized the heat had shrunk my appetite and I wasn’t hungry enough for a sub. So I grabbed a bag of Sun Chips and a chocolate chip cookie which I only ate half of because I’d forgotten that Liz had arranged a bump up to First Class (for the same price). They fed me a full meal half way into the flight.

All this to say, not to worry! I came home quite satisfied. Oh, BTW, what was it you made Saturday night? Homemade enchiladas? They were so good. Where did you say you learned to cook?

yb: Oh yeah, those were enchiladas. With an egg on top. (The way the locals eat ’em.) My mom taught me how to make the red chile from pods. Everything I make that’s any good, it’s because my mom taught me. Next time you come, bring Liz. We like having visitors.

QM:  I will be back to New Mexico in the not too distant future. Of that I am sure. Liz and I have been wanting to get away together for some time. With her in school and me traveling as much as I have for my writing, it’s been about 3 years since we took a week off together. So maybe next time we’ll come through New Mexico!

You know, I was thinking this morning that in 2008, I want to take a writer’s retreat in northern Minnesota. Or maybe a few hours north in Duluth. Then my mind extrapolated and thought, why not invite ybonesy? We could have shared time together and then separate time to write alone.

Or you could paint the North Shore, which is stunning. It’s all about the water here in Minnesota. What do you think?

Hey, I was also wondering, now that you’ve had time to sit with your week at Ghost Ranch, how do you think it changed your painting and writing? Or even your idea of the direction you want to head on red Ravine. What do you think was the biggest thing to come out of our meeting?

yb: I love that idea! I’d like to do a retreat somewhere outside NM, and I want to see your part of the world, too.

Let’s see, on your two questions, Ghost Ranch gave me the opportunity to dedicate an entire week to my painting and to see that yes, I am an artist. I have all the experiences inside me. I rarely devote that much time all at once to producing, so the gift was having the time, the materials, inspired teachers and students, and a beautiful setting. It all came together.

And our meeting, well, I think I realized how much I gain from having creative people in my life who I can talk to about writing and art. Our conversation generated good ideas for my own work as well as for the work we’re doing together. That’s huge. Inspiration is huge. How about you? What do think was the biggest thing?

QM: Hmmm. I felt really comfortable in Taos this time. I was tired from the work I was doing, but the experience and learnings were deep. On the Twin Hearts shuttle between Taos and Albuquerque, I realized I need to do a writing retreat in 2008. Give myself time to go somewhere alone or with a few trusted writing friends. It was the first time I had that feeling so strongly.

(BTW, there were only two of us on the 11a.m. shuttle from Mabel’s in Taos, and I was the only person after we passed Santa Fe! It felt like a limo!)

About our meeting, the biggest thing was to bounce creative ideas and projects off a trusted writer, artist, and friend. The road is a hard one. And it’s difficult to find a person who not only shares a mutal vision and is willing to do the work, but supports me in my individual projects and dreams. I’m so awake to that kind of listening. And you want to know the biggest and most simple thing? I ask questions about your life and you ask questions about mine. It’s an equal exchange. Refreshing!

-Shadow Shifting, July 2007, Albuquerque, NM, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

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Mabel’s Dining Room

–Mabel’s Dining Room, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, July 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

It’s summer at Mabel’s. The wind whipped through the cottonwoods after a hot, muggy day. I was drenched in sweat while giving the presentation on When the Emperor Was Divine. And then, the rain came. A quick shower from blackened skies. The afternoon winds visit each day. And the light. How do I describe the light?

The photograph is from last Saturday, the day I arrived in Taos. I have been so swamped, and dead on my feet at the end of each day, that I haven’t had time to take photos since Day 1.

Tomorrow we walk to the Harwood Museum of Art (it used to be a library and is one of the places where Natalie Goldberg wrote Banana Rose) to see the Richard Diebenkorn exhibit. He’s mentioned in Natalie’s book, In Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World. It’s one of my favorite books by Natalie. The colors are bold and alive; the paper is slick and thick. The book feels good in the hands. The writing speaks for itself.

We’ve talked a lot about the visual aspects of writing this week. How to capture details the way an artist captures color, shadow, form, and light on the palette. There has been community (there are 57 attending) and tons of writing practice. Slow walking and meditation in the morning. Thursday we go to the Rio Grande for a swim. I automatically go into that deeper silent place when I walk from the Gatehouse to the Juniper House where the class meets. It feels like coming home.

It’s almost midnight. And I’m sitting in Mabel’s dining room, clacking away at the keys. I am the only one on the lower floor of the adobe. Writers and artists sleep above. I’m tired. And, in a minute, I will lock up and walk over to my room, hopefully for a good night’s sleep. My dreams are always full here. Sometimes strange. And there are nights when they wake me up.

Natalie says we dream more here because the mind knows we are open to receiving what might come.  So it gives us what we are ready for.  I think it’s that – and the ancestors; they are closer to earth in this place. I am grateful for Natalie’s teachings. And for what she has taught me about teaching. And about writing. Each time I come here, I get closer to something or someone I know is at the heart of me.

Grrrrrrr. I’m gritting my teeth and pounding my heart with balled fists. I want it. I am here. And I want it.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

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