Wednesday, July 07, 2004
I finally feel like I'm home. It has been a balm to return to hours and hours of alone time. After the last, packed days of school--with dozens of voices calling “Shauna. Shauna? Shauna!”--and the densely packed two weeks of camp--with artshares and conversations in the elevator and teaching more students--I’m finally alone. Just me, in the house. Nothing to do but read. Or write for another hour. Or take a nap. Finally. It's finally summer, and my body is going to heal more fully.
I'm still missing Sitka, although I probably have more time to miss it than most of my colleagues do. They have rushed back to their office jobs (I’m sorry, you guys. And have you seen The Office yet?) or family vacations, or more camps ((Kristin's halfway through a bass camp in Oakland, right now). One of my friends wrote to me today, saying, “I can’t believe that I just saw you last week. It feels like years ago now.” Not for me. But because I didn't have to rush back to work or move onto another camp, I've had time to really digest my time there. I’ve had days to chew on those moments, savoring the sweetest ones, then letting them go. I feel cleansed.
One of my friends, Jessica, said this morning, of the montage I sent out (and posted here this evening): "My god, the images you have held in your head. I can't take that much in, much less keep it." But that’s me. Wide-open eyes. Everything an experience. If I want to be here, it’s all beautiful. This morning, I walked too quickly past my kitchen counter and brushed against the container of almonds I had forgotten to close. With a loud flourish, dozens and dozens of brown almonds fanned out against the white floor in slow motion. I looked back at it, and laughed. I know that other people might have been annoyed. I might be too, in another moment. But in this one, I just laughed. So I kneeled down to pick them up. And then I slowed down. Instead of rushing to have them all off the floor, why not feel each one as I was picking it up? Call it the five-minute rule, instead of the five second. So I felt my knees on the hard floor, felt the shape of each almond as I picked it up--chipped or sheared in half or furrowed diamond--and felt the breeze coming through the window at the moment on my right cheek. And in the middle of it, I slowed down enough to feel this: This is life. Just one of these moments after another. Picking up almonds could be a sanctified activity, if we only remembered to experience it.
And then I stood up, because my knees hurt.
Strangely, the more deeply I focus on the images of my life, the more quickly they pass through me. The ones I don’t look at it are the ones that tug.
“The only way out is through.” --Albert Camus
And when life feels slow like this, I’m walking around feeling almost broken-hearted. I don’t mean that in the romantic way of Cole Porter songs and easy-to-hum pop songs. I mean, broken-open-hearted. I was trying to tell Reber about this in Sitka, on one of the first days I could walk again. I don't know if he understood. When I’m walking slowly, I feel it all. I’m not rushing to impress or do the work I think will give me more stature with people or ticking off the perpetual to-do list in my head that never diminishes. Those are all just a wall against feeling, a way to convince ourselves that we don’t have time to listen. Listen to that little empty ache at the bottom of our stomachs, the ache that means we’re not truly loving or doing the work that makes us feel most alive. When I’m walking slowly, I’m just here. And when I’m here, everything breaks my heart. In the feeling-the-connections way. In sensing the ephemerality, the sweet evanescence, the way it’s more gorgeous for the fact that it’s all going to end soon way. And the pure absurdity of life way--how we strive and strain and hide from ourselves. And how easy it is to see when you’re just walking slowly.
Since I returned home, I've done as close to nothing as possible. Hours to write. Long walks in the evening. Sleeping for nine hours a night. Talking with friends on the phone. Hydro-fit classes with my 70-year-old friends. Indolence in the afternoon.
This morning, I thought I had the germy viral infection my brother had on Saturday. Slightly queasy. A little fever. Logey. So instead of pushing it, I sat up in bed, propped up on pillows, back on the heating pad. Why not? And I watched Return of the King, over the course of six or seven hours. God, I love that movie. I had to keep stopping, for food or naps or a break from the violence. Since the car accident, I’m such a ninny. I feel every act of violence I see. I felt so invigorated from watching that film, though, not only because it’s fucking awesome (there’s good writer language for you), but also because I sensed all the love and determination and courage it took for all the artists to finish it that way. I cried and cried, especially when Sam said, “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” And he muscled Frodo onto his back and lumbered up that mountain, slowly, out of pure love.
Yes. That’s what I want. That’s how I want to be in the world.
When else am I going to have an entire day to watch one movie and ponder it for hours? I love summer vacation. A real sense of rest.
Why is it so hard for us to rest?
But mostly, after these days of lying low and processing, I feel like I'm back. The novel is taking over my life. When I read Jessica’s comment about how many images I hold, I wanted to giggle. What I wanted to say was, "You should see the images in my head that I haven't told you yet." Letting go of Sitka is opening the door for my characters to come flooding back in. And oh, are they talking to me again. In urgent voices, filled with passion.
In fact, I have to stop writing here now, so I can listen to them.
So I'm good. Feeling alive and whole. Feeling profoundly changed, in some way, after Sitka. And feeling like I have no way to name that change. That's okay.
I'm just here.
I'm still missing Sitka, although I probably have more time to miss it than most of my colleagues do. They have rushed back to their office jobs (I’m sorry, you guys. And have you seen The Office yet?) or family vacations, or more camps ((Kristin's halfway through a bass camp in Oakland, right now). One of my friends wrote to me today, saying, “I can’t believe that I just saw you last week. It feels like years ago now.” Not for me. But because I didn't have to rush back to work or move onto another camp, I've had time to really digest my time there. I’ve had days to chew on those moments, savoring the sweetest ones, then letting them go. I feel cleansed.
One of my friends, Jessica, said this morning, of the montage I sent out (and posted here this evening): "My god, the images you have held in your head. I can't take that much in, much less keep it." But that’s me. Wide-open eyes. Everything an experience. If I want to be here, it’s all beautiful. This morning, I walked too quickly past my kitchen counter and brushed against the container of almonds I had forgotten to close. With a loud flourish, dozens and dozens of brown almonds fanned out against the white floor in slow motion. I looked back at it, and laughed. I know that other people might have been annoyed. I might be too, in another moment. But in this one, I just laughed. So I kneeled down to pick them up. And then I slowed down. Instead of rushing to have them all off the floor, why not feel each one as I was picking it up? Call it the five-minute rule, instead of the five second. So I felt my knees on the hard floor, felt the shape of each almond as I picked it up--chipped or sheared in half or furrowed diamond--and felt the breeze coming through the window at the moment on my right cheek. And in the middle of it, I slowed down enough to feel this: This is life. Just one of these moments after another. Picking up almonds could be a sanctified activity, if we only remembered to experience it.
And then I stood up, because my knees hurt.
Strangely, the more deeply I focus on the images of my life, the more quickly they pass through me. The ones I don’t look at it are the ones that tug.
“The only way out is through.” --Albert Camus
And when life feels slow like this, I’m walking around feeling almost broken-hearted. I don’t mean that in the romantic way of Cole Porter songs and easy-to-hum pop songs. I mean, broken-open-hearted. I was trying to tell Reber about this in Sitka, on one of the first days I could walk again. I don't know if he understood. When I’m walking slowly, I feel it all. I’m not rushing to impress or do the work I think will give me more stature with people or ticking off the perpetual to-do list in my head that never diminishes. Those are all just a wall against feeling, a way to convince ourselves that we don’t have time to listen. Listen to that little empty ache at the bottom of our stomachs, the ache that means we’re not truly loving or doing the work that makes us feel most alive. When I’m walking slowly, I’m just here. And when I’m here, everything breaks my heart. In the feeling-the-connections way. In sensing the ephemerality, the sweet evanescence, the way it’s more gorgeous for the fact that it’s all going to end soon way. And the pure absurdity of life way--how we strive and strain and hide from ourselves. And how easy it is to see when you’re just walking slowly.
Since I returned home, I've done as close to nothing as possible. Hours to write. Long walks in the evening. Sleeping for nine hours a night. Talking with friends on the phone. Hydro-fit classes with my 70-year-old friends. Indolence in the afternoon.
This morning, I thought I had the germy viral infection my brother had on Saturday. Slightly queasy. A little fever. Logey. So instead of pushing it, I sat up in bed, propped up on pillows, back on the heating pad. Why not? And I watched Return of the King, over the course of six or seven hours. God, I love that movie. I had to keep stopping, for food or naps or a break from the violence. Since the car accident, I’m such a ninny. I feel every act of violence I see. I felt so invigorated from watching that film, though, not only because it’s fucking awesome (there’s good writer language for you), but also because I sensed all the love and determination and courage it took for all the artists to finish it that way. I cried and cried, especially when Sam said, “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you.” And he muscled Frodo onto his back and lumbered up that mountain, slowly, out of pure love.
Yes. That’s what I want. That’s how I want to be in the world.
When else am I going to have an entire day to watch one movie and ponder it for hours? I love summer vacation. A real sense of rest.
Why is it so hard for us to rest?
But mostly, after these days of lying low and processing, I feel like I'm back. The novel is taking over my life. When I read Jessica’s comment about how many images I hold, I wanted to giggle. What I wanted to say was, "You should see the images in my head that I haven't told you yet." Letting go of Sitka is opening the door for my characters to come flooding back in. And oh, are they talking to me again. In urgent voices, filled with passion.
In fact, I have to stop writing here now, so I can listen to them.
So I'm good. Feeling alive and whole. Feeling profoundly changed, in some way, after Sitka. And feeling like I have no way to name that change. That's okay.
I'm just here.
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