Suddenly Opened

Suddenly opened little windows into the darkness
and though a wind made them shiver 
they did not quite disappear.

Four walls and a roof make a house, or they try to,
and an exile learns to carry matches
as a matter of course.

It's true that once your hair made a gold-red aureole
and my clothes have never fit well since,

but to presume beyond that
outruns my writ.

Fifteen Years After

Buried Temple, by Natalie D'Arbeloff. Acrylic on paper, 37cm x 37 cm.

Fifteen years! I'll have more to say about that soon. It was a difficult time in my life, and I felt very much alone. And then these curious things came along, by the unlovely name of blogs: windows into other lives. Suddenly I knew other people who were interested both in literature and in the spirit, both in nature and in the wrought world, both in common kindness and in divine transcendence. A conversation sprang up, which has taken many forms: sometimes it's subsided, sometimes it's unexpectedly resumed. The company over the years has made my life much richer. Here's some of a recent interchange, when we took of the question why are we still blogging?

Rachel: Writing is one of the fundamental ways I experience and explore the world, both the external world and my own internal world. I think it was EM Forster who wrote, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Blogging as I’ve come to understand it is living one’s life in the open, with spiritual authenticity and intellectual curiosity, ideally in conversation or relationship with others who are doing the same.

Dave: At some level, it's easier to keep blogging at Via Negativa, the Morning Porch, and Moving Poems than it is to stop. Basically I'm an addict. Writing poetry is fun for me — entering that meditative head-space required for immersion in writing. As for the social aspect, I've been in, or on the periphery of, several distinct blogging communities over the years, and at one time, we all commented on each other's sites, but with the rise of social media, most blog commenting went away — and I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing. Writing and responding to comments did take up a lot of my time ten years ago, and now that I can scratch that conversational itch on Twitter, or in real life with my partner, I'm OK with most interactions on my blogs being limited to pings. But I must immediately qualify that and admit that Via Negativa is a special case, because for well over half its existence now I've enjoyed the virtual companionship of a co-blogger, the brilliant and prolific poet Luisa Igloria, and a small number of occasional guest bloggers as well. I wouldn't say I'm competitive, but Luisa's commitment to a daily poetry practice has definitely forced me to up my game. Then there's Mr. Pepys. My Pepys Diary erasure project grew directly from sociability: my partner and I wanted to read the online version of the diary together, and I worried I might eventually get bored with it if I weren't mining it for blog fodder. 

Lorianne: I am not attached to the medium, but I am attached to the message, and the process of creating/sharing that message.  There has been a lot of hand-wringing among bloggers over the “death of the blog,” with long-time (and former) bloggers worried about attention divides between blogs and social media.  Where do “I” live if I post in multiple places: on blog, in a paper notebook, on social media? For those of us who do all three, the result can be confusing, distracting, and frazzling...or it can be creative, collaborative, and synergistic.

Dale: I didn’t really expect ever to have readers, so in a way, having readership dwindle is a return to the early days... I’ve outlived some of my personas -- I’m no longer recognizeably very Buddhist, and my politics have morphed in some odd ways. I don’t think I’m as salable an item as I used to be :-) But the inertia, as Dave said. When I do have something to say and my censor doesn’t step in, the blog is still where I go. It’s been home for fifteen years: my strand of the web… The community that was established way back when is still important to me, and still a large part of my life. And there’s still a lot of value in having a public space. The act of making something public changes it, changes how I look at. I become the viewers and the potential viewers. It helps me get out of myself. It helps me work through my favorite game of “what if I’m wrong about all these things?”

Natalie: Why the hell still blogging? Not sure I am still blogging. I put something up on Facebook whenever I feel like saying hey, listen, or hey, look at this. Then I copy/paste the post to Blogger where I keep Blaugustine going, mainly out of a sense of imaginary duty. The idea that there are some real people out there who may be actually interested in some of my thoughts and/or artwork is undoubtedly attractive, even necessary. I live a mostly hermit life and don’t get much feedback of any kind. But my interior life is very active, all the time, and having a tiny public platform online where I can put stuff is really helpful. To be perfectly honest I think that’s about it for me and blogging at present. I don’t do any other social media, it would all take too much time which I’d rather devote to artwork.

Beth: I think a lot of it has to do with a sense of place. My blog is like a garden or a living room that I’ve put energy and thought and care into as a place that’s a reflection of myself and is hopefully welcoming for others.. The discipline of gathering work and talking about it coherently has been extremely good for me and for my art practice. And I’ve also really appreciated and been inspired by other people who do the same, whatever their means of expression. There’s something deeply meaningful about following someone’s body of work, and their struggles, over not just months but years. In today’s climate of too-muchness and attention-seeking and short attention spans, I feel so encouraged and supported by the quiet, serious doggedness of other people like me!

La Caza Que Practica

--Lo que busco decirle es que esa prolongada obsesión puede producir ciertos...
--¿Trastornos?
--Secuelas, es la palabra. A mi juicio, un cazador queda marcado por la caza que practica.

"What I'm trying to say is that a longtime obsession can produce certain..."
"Disorders?"
"Consequences, is the word. To my mind, a hunter is permanently marked by the hunt that he practices."

--El Asedio, Arturo Pérez-Reverte


I've been sick for a past few days -- mildly, some virus or other; enough to keep me home from work and cancelling appointments, but not otherwise very distressing. I'm better now. Just did my resistance training for the day, and reveling in the post-exercise glow. I miss that now, when I can't get it.

Being homebound and not minding makes me realize how large a change I've undergone, in the past year and a half. I used to hate being homebound. Now I rather like it. I have lots of time to cook and clean. I'm no longer all about escaping the house and being in the world. I still like being in the world: I just find being at home more interesting and rewarding than I used to. I tussle with problems such as "can I replace the hamburger in my dinner with something cheaper and healthier, without wrecking its satiety quotient?" and it seems valid to me, a worthy enterprise, an interesting one. This is progress, I think. Unless it's just dwindling. Fading into the west. Whatever. There are worse things.

Pearl-white sky: birds shifting in the hedge. Occasionally a drip of water from somewhere above makes a single leave shudder, but otherwise we're sunk in a huge stillness and silence. Nothing needs to be done. Winter, as we understand it here, has arrived.

The Size Of My Bones

There were giants in those days.

Yesterday, we set out on a chilly, gloomy day for what Martha calls the Rhododendron Gardens, and I call Crystal Springs -- what's the real name? I forgot to check -- at the edge of the Reed College campus.

We walked, and talked philosophy and Buddhism and Christianity and politics and mortality. Whenever we paused, the waterfowl began to gather. "I'm sorry, we don't have anything for you," said Martha. They gathered anyway.

The sun came out and everything was brilliantly lit -- mallards and wood ducks and geese paddling around us. Every time a duck went uptails nearby, its little orange-pink ankles showing above the water as its feet churned to keep its head down, we laughed.

Behind us, a couple of shadowy, quick-moving young people -- people younger than us, anyway -- took pictures. The old couple nestled together watching the sunlit ducks. "We're going to be a stock photo. Golden years," says Martha. I grimace and stick my tongue out.

Golden lads and girls all must
As chimney sweepers, come to dust.

All my life I thought I had big bones. I was "husky," a word much used in my childhood but which seems quaint now. My bones are actually the same size as everyone else's, something I could have discovered any time these sixty years by simply measuring the circumference of my wrists.

Beyond the wood on the west side of the lake lie the rail yards, and a deep bass roar and rattle comes from them, at times. All of us, mammals and waterfowl, are used to it, and take no notice. It's just the rumble signifying the end of the world: we've heard it all our lives.

We stand up to go. As we look down into the shallows we see a crayfish crawling cautiously out from under a rock. "A crawdad!" exclaims Martha, falling into her native dialect, which always pleases me. "I didn't know there were crawdads here."

And so back home, refreshed but hungry, and late for lunch.

Salting An Egg By Feel

The mornings grow dark, only half-light spilling in;
I can't see to sprinkle salt onto my egg
(warm from its boiling, pulsing in my hand.)
I know from memory,
from mornings lighter than this
what it feels like, done right; a couple
little taps with my forefinger, the shaker held
just so. It works just fine. The sense of touch
will do. I don't need to see it any more. But I worry
about people who have never seen bright mornings:
how will they learn how it's supposed to feel?