Oh gosh! This particular post--- quite sensational, Grant. It so speaks to me for I am undergoing my own wrestle with what I deem procrastination on a particular project. If what is true of me in this period of procrastination might also be true of you, then I suspect you are undergoing a very transformative passage in your life. Even your reference to Whitman (that passage a chart-topper on my list of favorite passages) speaks to how I've been squirming through a transition. Every word of your post resonates.
Will see you on the 12th. Looking forward, & thanks for enhancing the transformation unfolding in my current life. ~Karen~
The closest thing I've had to a "sacred chair" over the past few years has been my various seats on the 548 bus, which winds its way from near my home in Laaksolahti to a bus terminal in Tapiola where I catch the Metro for the last part of my journey to work. It's never quite the same seat, or sometimes it is, but I've done so much writing on that bus using my Freewrite Traveler typewriter that it has felt like my true office. I suppose it's all the more special because it's always moving, and motion has a way of making me feel grounded as nothing else can. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones there, I've found a peace I hardly ever find anywhere else, not even on other bus lines or routes!
I missed it while on summer holiday and look forward to getting back on that bus this week!
Thanks for including that Wesley McNair quotation. I love his work, especially "The Last Time Shorty Towers Fetched the Cows."
I love the idea of a "sacred chair" being a bus. You made me remember the bus I took to SF each morning after I moved to Berkeley, how that was my time to read (because I'd just had kids), and how peaceful it was, with my seat perched up so I could see all of the happenings on the Bay.
Thanks for sharing that poem as well. The definition of tragicomic. Poor Shorty.
I also agree that everything here resonates- the numen, the "Losses" excerpt, so many of the because beauty, the images that filled my mind and took me away from where I sat as I read, even the upright piano, which we had, too, (and I never appropriately learned how to play) and as a kid, I asked my piano teacher to play "the song that sounds like flowers gently blowing in the breeze," and somehow he knew that it was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
Love the Walt Whitman quote. That's how I feel often - a mass of contradictions. At the moment I'm stuck on how to proceed with my memoir because of the contradictions within me, and it! Though I do at least feel at peace about it.
I'm going to write around that "sacred space". There's a magazine [can't remember title but I've got it in a file upstairs] that are asking for a 2000 word piece on "Refuge" and i think your prompt might just help there!
Yes, the Whitman quote is one of my favorites of all time—and I wish more people saw everyone as containing multitudes. I think contradictions are a great thing for storytelling, and especially for memoir, because we can want or do two or more different things at once. I think if we acknowledge that on the page, it's a type of vulnerability that engages the reader--and really deepens the story for us as writers.
I love that there is an essay on "Refuge." We all need one. Or two.
This resonates a great deal. I had that kind of meaningful place--the dock on the lake I grew up on. The sunsets, the flocks of birds, the catfish, gators, and cattails. I loved sitting on the dock, eating tangerines, reading a book or talking to a friend. There's much about where I grew up that I hated, but that spot on the water was a magical bubble. Then in '21 without telling me until after the fact, my dad sold it. I'm still bereft, and still bothered that my dad didn't think about telling me.
Saying goodbye to those spaces, those things, is hard. It's helped me to adopt the ritual of saying goodbye, and thanking the place or object for its time.
Oh gosh! This particular post--- quite sensational, Grant. It so speaks to me for I am undergoing my own wrestle with what I deem procrastination on a particular project. If what is true of me in this period of procrastination might also be true of you, then I suspect you are undergoing a very transformative passage in your life. Even your reference to Whitman (that passage a chart-topper on my list of favorite passages) speaks to how I've been squirming through a transition. Every word of your post resonates.
Will see you on the 12th. Looking forward, & thanks for enhancing the transformation unfolding in my current life. ~Karen~
Yes, definitely a very transformative passage is at work! Best of luck with your own wrestling, and see you on the 12th!
The closest thing I've had to a "sacred chair" over the past few years has been my various seats on the 548 bus, which winds its way from near my home in Laaksolahti to a bus terminal in Tapiola where I catch the Metro for the last part of my journey to work. It's never quite the same seat, or sometimes it is, but I've done so much writing on that bus using my Freewrite Traveler typewriter that it has felt like my true office. I suppose it's all the more special because it's always moving, and motion has a way of making me feel grounded as nothing else can. Wearing noise-cancelling headphones there, I've found a peace I hardly ever find anywhere else, not even on other bus lines or routes!
I missed it while on summer holiday and look forward to getting back on that bus this week!
Thanks for including that Wesley McNair quotation. I love his work, especially "The Last Time Shorty Towers Fetched the Cows."
I love the idea of a "sacred chair" being a bus. You made me remember the bus I took to SF each morning after I moved to Berkeley, how that was my time to read (because I'd just had kids), and how peaceful it was, with my seat perched up so I could see all of the happenings on the Bay.
Thanks for sharing that poem as well. The definition of tragicomic. Poor Shorty.
I also agree that everything here resonates- the numen, the "Losses" excerpt, so many of the because beauty, the images that filled my mind and took me away from where I sat as I read, even the upright piano, which we had, too, (and I never appropriately learned how to play) and as a kid, I asked my piano teacher to play "the song that sounds like flowers gently blowing in the breeze," and somehow he knew that it was Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
Wow, what a wonderful description: ""the song that sounds like flowers gently blowing in the breeze." A poet in the making ...
Love the Walt Whitman quote. That's how I feel often - a mass of contradictions. At the moment I'm stuck on how to proceed with my memoir because of the contradictions within me, and it! Though I do at least feel at peace about it.
I'm going to write around that "sacred space". There's a magazine [can't remember title but I've got it in a file upstairs] that are asking for a 2000 word piece on "Refuge" and i think your prompt might just help there!
Thank you for a great post - again
Yes, the Whitman quote is one of my favorites of all time—and I wish more people saw everyone as containing multitudes. I think contradictions are a great thing for storytelling, and especially for memoir, because we can want or do two or more different things at once. I think if we acknowledge that on the page, it's a type of vulnerability that engages the reader--and really deepens the story for us as writers.
I love that there is an essay on "Refuge." We all need one. Or two.
Perhaps it is the vulnerability I'm nervous of sharing at the moment?
"Or two" or maybe three or more. Actually thinking that gives me an idea to take the refuge idea further. Thank you :)
This resonates a great deal. I had that kind of meaningful place--the dock on the lake I grew up on. The sunsets, the flocks of birds, the catfish, gators, and cattails. I loved sitting on the dock, eating tangerines, reading a book or talking to a friend. There's much about where I grew up that I hated, but that spot on the water was a magical bubble. Then in '21 without telling me until after the fact, my dad sold it. I'm still bereft, and still bothered that my dad didn't think about telling me.
Saying goodbye to those spaces, those things, is hard. It's helped me to adopt the ritual of saying goodbye, and thanking the place or object for its time.