Bartleby Revisited

I am, gentler reader, at a word, exhausted. Not tired. Not weary (although this word has shades of meaning that apply, to be sure).

ex·haust·ed /igˈzôstid/

Adjective:
1. Drained of one's physical or mental resources; very tired.
2. (of resources or reserves) Completely used up.

or:

wea·ry  \ˈwir-ē\

Adjective:
1. Exhausted in strength, endurance, vigor, or freshness

Nevertheless, things need be done. I cheat, perhaps, by using the words of others. In doing so, true, I surely am only doing what others have done before me. I have, by times, created, perhaps I can now simply borrow. And of course, by times, someone simply expresses something better than oneself is currently capable of. I rest, then, on the shoulders of giants.

Read, then, Gentle Reader, and consider:

Windchime

BY TONY HOAGLAND

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It’s six-thirty in the morning

and she’s standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she’s trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it—the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn’t making

because it wasn’t there.

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving—

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it.

I see the problem, Gentle Reader, scrunched into your forehead, or perhaps mine. I can hear it, the sound that isn't there. No one, including me, especially believes that this post, or this poem, constitues an answer. It is not, for instance, Andrew Marvell, although some of that one rings true to me as well. We do not, it may be, have worlds enough, or time. We might, if we are lucky, or good, have till death. 

And I too can see what I would miss. Allow me, therefore, to stretch, tip-toed on the ice chest, and reach.

On Forgetting...

Some things, gentle reader, are easier to remember than others. Memory, like poetry, is a tricky thing indeed. We don't remember pain, not real pain. We know it happened, but we don't actually remember it. Oddly, we still remember bad things more than good. Maybe we think the good is ours by right, and remember the slight of the bad, or maybe the good is to engrossing in the moment for us to cement memories.

[love is more thicker than forget]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

it is more mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

I don't always get cummings. I'm a big fan of the double negative to express a positive, don't get me wrong, but cummings has me beat for sure. But maybe he's right about love. Maybe it is thicker than forget. Do we remember love, Gentle Reader? Is it thinner than recall? Maybe we don't remember it as much as we remember the bad, the hurt, the shadow of the pain. Love is grand, boys. It is big, it is bold, and if you are lucky, hang on to it. It's a grand thing for sure. 

Careful, though. Love is not the all and end all. cummings might be right in making love less bigger, less littler, less always, less never. cummings might be wrong about forgive, though.

Love is...Less littler than forgive.

I'd bet forgiveness is bigger than cummings allows for. It's often harder than love, is forgiveness. While I occasionally support the use of clichés, Forgive and forget is one of the ones I'm least fond of. Too trite. Too smug.

We don't remember pain. But we remember the cause of it, the context of it, the why of it. And we learn. Forgiveness is harder than most might suspect. And maybe it should be.

Forgive me, Gentle Reader?

On Nature...

Not long ago, I posted a poem, ostensibly a nature poem, here. Poems are tricky things, At first glance, I wouldn't have called that one a nature poem, but the internet tells me it might be.

Eh bien. I am not overly concerned. Nevertheless, I has led me to thing about nature poems a bit.

Wanting Sumptuous Heavens

BY ROBERT BLY

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,

And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.

Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want

Heaven to be, and God to come, again.

There is no end to our grumbling; we want

Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.

But the heron standing on one leg in the bog

Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

I'm not convinced this one is a nature poem, either. Poems are slippery things, as I said. 

On the Future...

Idiosyncrate is a strange beast, to be sure. Lately, it's been rubbing me the wrong way, and, like that proverbial cat everyone seems to talk about, I do not particularly enjoy it.
Bit of a dry spell, lately, on the writing front. Here, there, everywhere. I've made these complains before, true, but they remain relevant. So much about what I read as advice to academics is about how to keep writing. I am not, it would seem, alone in this.
I told myself, "Self, you need to update Idiosyncrate more". And so, I tried. And the posts were not always good (Even the ones that weren't forced were not always good, it is true. Still...)
In any case, what was a nice thing in my life, a space where I could express something, explore the written word, let slip the wild images conjured in my head by the magic of my Muse, became something of a chore.
I have other chores, other writing schedules, and other places to write of the profane, if need be. I forgot, somewhere along the way, the essence of what Idiosyncrate had become.
Woe is me.
No more, Gentle Reader. It is just you, me and my Muse, now. No schedules, no pressure, no formula, no format. A few rules, perhaps, unspoken. Tacit agreements for propriety's sake.
What is that you ask? Is it that I have lacked inspiration? No. Too easy. Lots of inspiration out there. Here's the secret, Gentle Reader: I wasn't paying attention.
Horror! It is true. Things got good, and I got happy, and I just wanted to be there, not here. Cuz, baby, words can be hard sometimes, if you let them get to you, but cake is easy.
A good while back, one of the many fine websites, blogs, or feeds I happily skim every day presented a fine little story about Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator. It was not long after I had watched, for the first time, Where the Wild Things Are, in what can only be described as pleasant circumstances. Context is everything. Great film.
The story quotes Sendak as saying that, "We've lost the knack of living in the world with the sensation of safety."Maybe we have. And maybe I felt too safe. Cake will do that to you. But the cake, it very well might be a lie.
In any case, I'm back, and thing are looking up, up, and out. I'm still happy. Let's not jump to conclusions. The happy is not gone.
But I've opened my eyes again, pushed myself away from the table, thrown down the dessert fork and napkin.
But how do we live, if not with this sensation of safety? What, Gentle Reader, are we to do? Well, Sendak maybe our saviour here too, among others. The author of the aforementioned fine little story introduces Sendak as,"The man who imagined escapes as romps that ended with warm suppers". Sendak was right. Escapes, romps, dancing russe before the mirror, or running naked in the woods may not be strictly safe. But they can, and often do, end in warm suppers. And even if they don't, we have not really lost much in the romping, I don't suppose.
So long as there is not too much cake.

On Being Good...

Quite sometime ago, A. directed me to a poem. She did not remember where she had seen it (or so it seems to me now), but she remembered the line "You do not have to be good" (admittedly, a solid opening line). The internet is many things, one of which is a really powerful search tool.
Maybe this is how I found the poem. Maybe A. found it some other way. I'm not sure it matters. It was read, and remembered, and found again, in any case.

Wild Geese

-Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.

I'm reading, currently (academically, of course; my recreational reading is ever so much more exciting) about ascetics, monks and assorted other holy peoples. People who most assuredly did walk on their knees in the desert, repenting. They felt they did need to be good. And for our sake, at that (well, for others sakes, anyway; perhaps not ours). They did not let the soft animals of their bodies love what it loved.
Willpower, they say, is a finite thing in a person. When one uses it all up in doing the one thing, there is none left for doing the next. This is why diets fails so spectacularly. One can only be so good for so long, before something gives.
Perhaps I do not need to be good, or to cross the desert on my knees. Maybe I should let the world offer itself to me, and love what I love. Sounds nice, actually. But sometimes I do need to be good. Maybe not desert repenting level good, but good all the same.
Sometimes, I think I'll also love what I love, though. That sounds pleasant enough as well.

"I'll be a ghost for you"

Last weekend, I returned home, that is, to the home of my ancestors. Such trips, as often as I might make them, are never routine, always in their own way momentous. A small, quite momentous, often. Yet still. Going home, is, and always has been, for me, important.
It was a cold rainy weekend, cold even for Metis. Even the unseasonably cold weather on the Island could not compare. Temperatures hovered closer to freezing than to comfortable. The rain didn't help.
But the landscape down home works with the rain, quite well really. The rocky outcroppings, the steel grey water of Le Fleuve, the grey beach and greyer sky. Muted greens and blues. It all hangs together in the mist and the rain. A rainy Metis has its own stately beauty.
There is a Gothic element about the place, in the mist and in the rain. It is always there, really. It is more readily apparent in inclement weather. I am reminded both of the writing of Flannery O'Connor, Joy's wooden leg, and of Annie Proulx's Newfoundland. Canadian Gothic. There is a magic in Metis, under the surface, there.
Oddly, few seem to recognize it. I wracked my brain yesterday, trying to remember one story, just one story, that might be described as a fairy tale, concerning my ancestral home. But I could not. No trolls, or spooks, hobgoblins, changelings, or anything. Sometimes, rarely, there is talk of dreams, and some forecasting of weather with the old ways.  Rarely. Maybe the dour Scots Presbyterians who settled there in the 1800's would brook no such thing, no magic, driving it from the wilderness. Maybe the boom and bust of the hotel years distracted the locals, plunged them headlong into the 20th century, where there is little place for such things. Who knows.
There is magic there, though, and I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't just waiting for the right stories to be told, the right words to be spoken.

On Writing...

One of the primary purposes of this space is for me to be able to write. I do a fearful amount of writing in  the pursuit of my PhD, and I've begun to do writing on the side as well, some business, some pleasure.
The most recent iteration of this space was really a place to work out the varied inspirations given me by my Muse, a capricious creature, to be sure, playful, but on the whole respectful of my creative soul. Mostly.
In any case, someone pointed me in the direction of these rules for beginning writers, which I saved on instapaper, and so forget the original source. Sorry. Yell at me in the comments, if you (whoever you are) think it was you I've forgotten. I'd hazard a guess at boingboing, but I could be wrong.

From India Uncut:

V.S. Naipaul’s Rules for Beginners


1. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.
2. Each sentence should make a clear statement. It should add to the statement that went before. A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.
3. Do not use big words. If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.
4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of. If you break this rule you should look for other work.
5. The beginner should avoid using adjectives, except those of colour, size and number. Use as few adverbs as possible.
6. Avoid the abstract. Always go for the concrete.
7. Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way. Small words; short, clear, concrete sentences. It may be awkward, but it’s training you in the use of language. It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university. You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.

Naipaul seems to have been after a certain type of writing here, to be sure. As an academic, I sometimes write long sentences, and long words. I likely often run over his 12 word and 5 letter limits. Still.
The original post that pointed me to these rules pointed out the especial usefulness of #4, and since I've read it, I've noticed the very dangerous habit of doing so in my own writing, and, worse yet, in my conversations. Since then, I have, I am proud to say, not broken rule #4 once. And it makes me feel much better.  In my own experience, #7 is particularly useful as well. Training in writing is dreadfully important. My easiest writing, the stuff that really flows, that comes out clean, the stuff I actually have fun with, always happens when I've been writing on a daily basis.
Oddly, it doesn't matter what I've been writing, either, I just need to be writing.
I suppose that means I should be nice to my Muse, doesn't it, gentle reader?