Wilderness Sayings

20 Friday Jan 2012

Tags

Blogging, Everyday Life, Soul Care, Wilderness Time, Wildlife

Perhaps it’s coincidence. Or nothing but tunnel vision that causes me to filter out what is not uppermost in my mind; when I have “X” on the brain I see “X.” And I see ‘X” everywhere. Sometimes to the exclusion of all else. No “Y.” No “Z.” No whatever else — as it flies past my line of vision.

But whether coincidence or tunnel vision, over and over I find myself thinking along a certain path — to encounter another on my blog roll further down that particular thinking trail. The connection feels important — not hokey, as with those sometimes, seemingly ‘spot-on’ sayings rising out of broken fortune cookies, that get read aloud by tables full of wisdom seekers.

Here’s one for instance — that comes out of a blog comment I wrote several days ago:

How strange to find you baptizing today’s post with the phrase “question without an answer” — on the day I should wake up realizing that unanswered questions are one of the many things to inspire me. Maybe it’s Rilke’s urging – “Live the questions now.” — to that young poet of old that causes me to find life most meaningful and real in the face of unanswered questions… [Questions like:]

Is my youngest daughter’s growth on her thyroid benign..?
What comes after death? [in thinking about my mother-in-law...]
What’s for supper?

No matter their weight, the questions themselves inspire me to live. Inch by inch. Day by day. Until I catch the glimmer of an answer…

Upon writing that list, I thought it an odd mix of questions — the first two hovering at the quick of life with the last feeling a bit frivolous and flighty. But rather than play editor, I decided to leave the questions be, keeping the list just as it came to me.

It was just as well. By the next day, I began seeing the questions as more connected than I’d first imagined. And it came about as all reinterpretations of the past happen — by looking at the same “X” through a different set of lens. In this case, it was more than one pair of lenses — for I looked at that list through the lens of a new event; and then the lens of a new experience, and finally, through the lens of one other than myself.

That the last came from a flock of birds who had just dropped in for supper — lending me their proverbial bird’s-eye view — well, this did throw me off-balance — enough to confess that even now, I can’t say whether these birds were Red-breasted Black Birds or Robins. All I know is they were ravenous and noisy and feasting on the fruit of the Cherry Laurel outside my kitchen window. It seemed every seat in my new bird cafe was filled. As fast as a ‘table’ came open, a new bird came to takes its place. No need to ask, “What’s for supper? These birds had the good fortune to find my tree, so supper became ripe black cherries.

Of course, whatever food they happened upon that day — fitting their own particular bird’s palate — could have become a fine supper: worms, birdseed or insects, perhaps. From the bird’s perspective, any answer would have been a good answer — a life-giving answer — as long as the birds themselves didn’t become another creature’s supper — like some bird-watching fat cat, per chance.

As I watched them eat, I saw that life for these birds, as it is for any creature living in the wilderness, is a meal-by-meal affair. It’s not a question of bird seed or worms. It’s birdseed. Or worms. Or fruit. Whatever they find. These live an eat or be eaten sort of existence. Everyday. From the birds perspective, living into the answer of ‘what’s for supper’ is not a light-weight question at all — why it very much belonged to that quick of life list of questions left in my blog comment.

Still, the strange thing about yesterday, one I still need to think about, is this: As I watched that bird-laden tree being picked over clean, I remember thinking how I’d never seen that tree look so alive before. It shook. And pulsed. As birds came and went. And while ravished by the wilderness, the tree lived on. Empty of fruit, the tree lives to bear again. The tree lives and the birds live. And I like how both the giver and the takers have happy endings.

And though I can’t say how — somehow, when I looked at that tree eaten yet not consumed, I imagined the tree being me. And that instead of birds feasting on my fruit, it became unanswered questions which pecked away my fruitfulness. Yes, it’s crazy, crazy, these thoughts of mine. But then, I’ve always had a wild imagination. Perhaps these loose connections I’m making are nothing but tunnel vision at play. Yes. Let’s just say that me being that tree — and my flock of questions being those birds — is nothing more than one of those odd life coincidences.

Still Life

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Evening, Everyday Life, Soul Care, True Self, Writing

“And if she did not remember these things who would? After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down…but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with the new clarity, the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.”

- Evening, by Susan Minot

I woke up thinking about last night’s mad dash to post a few October stills while October still had breath in its body. As if this blog was my very own Pinterest board to remember life with a few little links.

Then as one thought always leads to another, I began thinking about all those October moments — no less important — that passed without an attempt to preserve the moment. No written words. No images, published or otherwise, at least in my possession. Like,

last Sunday’s final Moveable Feast for the year, a rare event where every family member sat in attendance,
a cute almost 10 month-old Reese Caroline dressed up like a little lamb for her first Halloween, so unhappy in her costume you’d think she was being led to … (no I can’t say it…),
the beauty coming forth in the east garden, once a forgotten side yard used to grow weeds and hold leftover stone,
the nine Nellie Stevens hollies planted on Saturday — doesn’t this sound like it belongs as a stanza in the Twelve Days of Christmas?, and
my new kitchen finally finished… except that I’ve decided to repaint it all again.

And the list lives on into infinity.

And then I look up to see the morning light casting this lovely November image on the wall — the very one that became header for this post. Perhaps, I think, it’s a gift for All Saint’s Day to remind me that what we see is not all that’s there?

I reach for my camera to capture it. To find, with no surprise whatsoever, that it wasn’t at all what I saw, it wasn’t at ALL what I experienced. Not by half. Because what I observed was so much better and richer than what I’m able to preserve.

I post a few words and images knowing, even as I write, it’s not necessarily the best of everyday life or even the best of me. But sometimes, yes sometimes — perhaps when the light is just right, and maybe’s it when I’m most aware of the play of the light and shadows, that a few words are born into the blog that mimic life in the moment enough to breathe shallowly upon the page.

A still image begins to sway and dance so that it’s a trick and treat to the eye. Mere slats from my window blinds cast shadows on the wall which mysteriously transform into a musical staff; the shadow of curled ironed work of the floor lamp looks like a treble clef; and something — I’m not sure what — maybe leaves on the tree outside my window? — begin to jump up and down the lines looking like musical notes dancing upon staff lines.

The shadow and light become a symphony like this.

And I think: Can life get better than this? If life is like THIS every moment of every day, then there’s no such thing as an everyday life — at least, as. everyday is commonly thought of — COMMON. PLAIN JANE. VANILLA. Dare I say….BORING?

And because of this mind set, and our own lack of attention — for surely I’m not alone in attention deficits — is it any wonder we can’t know the whole of our lives?

Responsive Readings

11 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by Janell in Soul Care, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Soul Care, Spiritual Direction, Writing

Intimate, as if conversing over morning coffee, Rose caught me up with a smattering of old family news.

She shared stories about family I knew only by name, like my new-found eighty-year old cousins living in Vermont. She told another about Great-Great Aunt Mary – who’d emigrated from Greece to America with my grandfather in 1911. She pulled a few special stories out about her father, who died when she was thirteen — even his prized family recipe for a Greek chicken-egg-lemon soup I whipped up last night.

Her bold script flowed fast over fourteen pages. But what amazes me most about Rose and this handwritten letter is how she refuses to allow her stories to grow stale. In spite of being recycled countless times, over ninety years of living, Rose tells it all fresh, reviving it to life again with rich detail.

In this week spent contemplating my writing, Rose’s letter has me wondering what makes for good writing. Does it come with a long-familiarity of subject addressed? Or is it an intimate sharing on matters closer to the quick of life? I only know her letter inspired me to response. And maybe, in the end, that’s what’s important – regardless of whether we spell our responses in words or actions.

Sometimes, as a reader of blogs, I respond by merely tuning in as a faithful reader — by listening to whatever it is the blog author wishes to share about life. When their words spark a written comment, I do so without thought of reply, regarding my blog post comments akin to prayer, knowing I’m heard whether or not I receive a direct reply.

I sometimes wonder if my best writing isn’t tucked away in personal notes and comments written over the years. It’s something I’ve wondered more than once, even out loud, a while back, to my spiritual director. The words spoken in spiritual direction are like prayer, too, in that I mostly speak into an attentive silence. Sometimes my words inspire a slow and thoughtful response. But rarely does one come rushing at me — as it did that day — when my director responded by saying he imagined St. Paul had probably expressed a similar thought about his own letter writing a time or two.

I confess I find it hard to read a response like his. I wonder what to make of it. And then I shift mental gears by wondering what his response will ultimately make of me. All I can say — two years later – is that I’m still working on a response to his response.

I’m thinking I may have one by the time I’m ninety. You can check back then — if not before.