Daily Things

I’m staying in a lot more these days. We’ve been keeping to one car, and my days are almost fully on the land and in the yurt, with Petka and Luba and the many things that fill my time. This winter has been mild so far. With little snow and bursts of warm, spring weather in the midst of it all. I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop for all of January, but now, at the end, I’m feeling that lovely bubbling hope. Perhaps spring will come on schedule, perhaps this summer will be long and bright.

At home I have the radio on almost constantly. Recently it’s been the classical station replacing the uncharged ipod, which has been stuck on Yarrow’s mix - songs she loves from Bruce Springsteen to Beyonce. Yarrow has eclectic tastes.

Thanks to my enforced stability, we are developing quite a little ritual to our days. One that involves an abundance of coffee, nursing, reading, and cleaning. In the spring I will have to re-evaluate. More coffee, less reading, at least during the day, to fit in all the outdoor work. But with snow all around, I’m forced to pursue ideas and dreams instead of planting and hoeing.

One of the trials of yurting, especially in the winter, is the near constant battle against mess. Often I feel as though I’ve just put the house in order when my husband will bring in a load of wood and leave scatterings of dirt and sticks throughout. Or Luba will knock the rugs into a pile and perch herself on top, looking proud. There is always something, and I am continually at war. With no closets to aid me in putting the “we should keep it out of the snow” chainsaw out of sight. Closets are a blessing I long for often.

   In the evening I am working on poems, with a purpose. I haven’t had this much direction in years, it’s unfortunate it doesn’t happen to come with an equal amount of inspiration, but I’m hoping that will come, if I rest my head in my hands enough, doze beside the fire enough, and stare at the writer’s fork on my right hand for long enough. Otherwise, I may have to do something drastic.

50 Days of Self-Reflection: Day 12

What is your favorite quotation? Why? What do you think this says about you?

Favorite..that’s really hard. I love quotations. I guess my favorite for simplicity and meaning is “Beauty will save the world” by Dostoyevsky. I love it because it is a simple summation of what I believe, because it inspires me, and because it looks fantastic written on my wrist in Polish.

What does it say about me..that I prefer quotations that are easy to attach to my body, and hard to live out. That I like things to be reasonably straightforward, and that I have a deep attachment to Russian writers.

Household Gods

“You often-comers, sleepers in things,

Who arise brightly,…

Once more be it your morning, gods.”

~Rainer Maria Rilke

Practically all houses are haunted in one way or another. The very old are haunted by relics of the past, ghosts, impressions, or emotions that can’t fade away, the very new are haunted by the possibilities that come flooding in. Most houses live somewhere in between. They are haunted by past, present, and future; by the good and evil their owners do, by hopes, desires, and memories. “Desires are memories from our future” says Rilke, but too often we forget and let the desires of today take over, let them become the demanding little gods that fill up the corners of our homes until there is no room for the others, the domovoi, the helpful friends who tend the stove at night and clear away the cobwebs.

In our home we have an abundance of both. We have the desires that gather behind the stove, whispering their impatience at night, collecting dust and blowing it upward to coat the rafters. We have the three relics who walk in the birches, guiding the frightened at night, keeping the darkness away. In the early morning, when I’ve lit the altar candle and crawled back into bed, they chant their prayers to the rising dawn, reminding me that each day is a new beginning.

Dreamlessness

“This place of which you say ‘It is a waste’…

There shall be heard again the voice

Of mirth and the voice of gladness.”
  ~Jeremiah 33:10-11

 I'm amused that both Jenna & Mr. Pond doubt their charity, which is visible and inspiring to me. Charity aside, last week's discussion highlighted our similarities, with each of us insisting our literary favorites were, as Mr. Pond put it, "more true..than the capricious, flattening, factual world." I loved the differing understanding of the effects of moonlight and the coming dawn. Moonlight is dangerous, but beautiful, essential for artistic dreamings, which is why, this week, in the darkness of the moon, I'm bringing the discussion over to the lack of dreams. What happens when the artist looses sight of the moon and flounders for awhile?

On nights of a heavy moon, I'm always up late. Shadows dance without candles and the coyotes yip and howl all around us. On those nights I can write late, sleep little and not feel tired. But the dark nights are Lenten - a time to die down to the roots, to gather strength for the coming light. The artistic life, like the natural world, and like the Christian life, is one of rhythms: fast, feast, fast again. The feasting times feed us well enough to last through the long, dry times when nothing is brought forth. The fasts are difficult. It’s hard to remember that they don’t last forever. In the artistic life, it’s tempting to use them as a time to lower standards - to make anything for the sake of having words on a page or pots on a shelf. I would agree, if the thought of a shelf of misshapen pots destined for the slop bucket, or pages tossed in the woodstove didn’t so depress me. Deliberately making disappointments is not the a path I can take out of the darkness. 

It seems most writers are divided as to how they cope with the artistic dryness that comes to everyone, at some time or another. Some must "stay drunk on writing so that reality cannot destroy you" (Ray Bradbury), others insist that "One ought only to write when one leaves a piece of one's own flesh in the inkpot" (Lev Tolstoy). I can't say I fall into either camp. Unfortunately, I've too many things to do each day to stay drunk on anything - writing, or vodka, or wine, and I would never get anything written if my flesh had to be included in it all - I haven't anywhere near Tolstoy's intensity (for which my husband is eternally grateful). My dry times are dealt with as Rilke (whose writing continually inspires) recommends:

 "to be an artist meant: not to reckon and count, to ripen like the tree which does not force it's sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without fear least no summer might come after."

In the dark nights, I wait, words ripening within, for the moon to light a new path. Not forcing words or faking inspiration. But I'm a part-time writer at best, with no deadlines to follow, and I have the luxury of time.

50 Days...(you know)

If you could chose a living person to share a meal and conversation with, who would it be, what would you discuss, and why would you chose him or her?

Benedict XVI would be fantastic, Pink and her husband would be fun..the conversation with one would be one of spiritual direction, I adore Benedict, and would love his direction; the conversation with Pink would probably be about her music, and babies, because I really admire her as an artist, and love her attitude toward motherhood (from what I know of it).

What about you?

50 days of Self Reflection: Day 10

If you were choosing your last meal - anything you wanted - what would it be and how would it be served? Why?

This would completely depend on my mood at the time, but generally, I think I would pick a huge picnic basket of fresh berries in cream, peaches, crusty bread, this one type of very soft cheese whose name I can never remember, cold kielbasa, hard boiled eggs, honey, and cold white wine. There would be clean napkins in bright red or blue, and white, a big cloth to spread it all out on, outside under beech and birch trees in the fall.

I love picnic food, and eating outdoors. I love the sense of freshness and life it gives to the whole day.

Money Jesus

I have a statue of the Infant of Prague watching over our finances. He belonged to my mother when she was small, and at some point in his history a quater was taped to his back, under the robes - to attract wealth, or at least stability.

We've kept the quarter where it is, and beside his little candle I give baby Jesus my coins to look over, in the hope one of his multiplication miracles will be repeated over them.