March 2009 Newsletter
03/08/2009
Dear Writing Friends,
As many of you know, I recently returned from a silent meditation and writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg. I intended to get this newsletter out immediately when I came home, as I hate to be late for anything. I thought there would be some event worthy of a short essay to share with you, some small bit of wisdom gleaned from my week in Taos. But the silence sunk deep into my belly this time and I found myself unable to squeeze meaning out of my experience. I wrote things down—the patchwork of snow and trees on Taos Mountain, a magpie sitting on a coyote fence—but they didn’t add up to anything. For a change, I was seeing thing as they were without pressing meaning upon them.
Although it has been over a week since we broke silence, I have been reluctant to let go of it, avoiding phone calls and small talk. As of Wednesday, I hadn’t even called my parents or the friends who covered childcare while I was away. I hope they will forgive me. They know my gratitude, and I’ll speak it soon enough. Natalie often talks about being slow and dumb, that these are the qualities a writer should cultivate. With an M.A. and a Ph.D. following my name, I often forget that and revert to thinking I should be quick and sharp, that my mind should be like a firecracker shooting off sparks all the time (which, admittedly, I find pleasant). But today I am glad for a peaceful mind. Silence and stillness are holding me up.
Wednesday my husband took his father to the hospital with chest pains While Steve sat in the emergency room with his father, I sat with my mother-in-law in her house. In the morning, when I arrived, she hadn’t dressed yet, so I waited for her in the living room. It took a long time for her to finish. I had my book bag, filled with notebooks and magazines and books, but I did not open it. I sat in the quiet house. Every once in a while it would cross my mind that I should worry that it was taking so long, but I resisted the temptation to check on her. She is eighty-six years old and she moves slowly. I let her take her time, and it helped me to stay present and focused. I had been practicing for this all week.
We spent most of the morning at the kitchen table staring at my cell phone, waiting for the latest word from my husband. He called to say they were checked into the hospital and waiting for a room. Then he called to tell me they were taking blood but wouldn’t have the results for an hour and a half. Then they were waiting for an EKG, then waiting for a doctor, waiting for an angiogram, waiting for information, waiting to see what the coming days would hold for us. In between phone calls, Mom and I ate soup and grapes and looked at baby pictures of my husband, all the time sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. At one point she said I didn’t have to babysit her. I told her I didn’t think of it that way. “We’re both waiting,” I said. “We might as well wait together.”
“It’s hard not to let your imagination wander,” she said. I told her that was normal and then tried to bring her back to the present moment: She and I sitting at the table together, dad in the hospital, getting the care he needed, none of us knowing what would be. A therapist once described it to me as anxiety on the edge of the unknown, a difficult place to rest. But we practiced together all day.
Steve’s dad had triple by-pass surgery on Friday. He sailed through it and is on his way to recovery. My book and my work (and this newsletter) have been on hold all week. I worry about when I’ll get back into the swing of my life, when I’ll be productive again. A good friend wrote the following in an e-mail: “Your practice is staying in the present moment with your family now.” I think that’s good advice. That’s what I’m trying to do, be here now with them and for them. Later I’ll write about it!
Quotation:
Knowing where you are can be a source of creative stability. If you are in Chicago you can go to Rome. If you ain’t no place you can’t go nowhere.
Richard Hugo, “Writing off the Subject”
Writing Topics:
Waiting
Where I am
Most of you are aware that Natalie Goldberg will be in Austin in just a few weeks, promoting the paperback edition of Old Friend From Faraway. On Wednesday, April 1, at 7 p.m., she will speak and sign books at Congregation Beth Israel (3901 Shoal Creek). Please help me welcome Natalie to Austin and find out why she is such a beloved teacher.
My best to everyone.
Saundra
As many of you know, I recently returned from a silent meditation and writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg. I intended to get this newsletter out immediately when I came home, as I hate to be late for anything. I thought there would be some event worthy of a short essay to share with you, some small bit of wisdom gleaned from my week in Taos. But the silence sunk deep into my belly this time and I found myself unable to squeeze meaning out of my experience. I wrote things down—the patchwork of snow and trees on Taos Mountain, a magpie sitting on a coyote fence—but they didn’t add up to anything. For a change, I was seeing thing as they were without pressing meaning upon them.
Although it has been over a week since we broke silence, I have been reluctant to let go of it, avoiding phone calls and small talk. As of Wednesday, I hadn’t even called my parents or the friends who covered childcare while I was away. I hope they will forgive me. They know my gratitude, and I’ll speak it soon enough. Natalie often talks about being slow and dumb, that these are the qualities a writer should cultivate. With an M.A. and a Ph.D. following my name, I often forget that and revert to thinking I should be quick and sharp, that my mind should be like a firecracker shooting off sparks all the time (which, admittedly, I find pleasant). But today I am glad for a peaceful mind. Silence and stillness are holding me up.
Wednesday my husband took his father to the hospital with chest pains While Steve sat in the emergency room with his father, I sat with my mother-in-law in her house. In the morning, when I arrived, she hadn’t dressed yet, so I waited for her in the living room. It took a long time for her to finish. I had my book bag, filled with notebooks and magazines and books, but I did not open it. I sat in the quiet house. Every once in a while it would cross my mind that I should worry that it was taking so long, but I resisted the temptation to check on her. She is eighty-six years old and she moves slowly. I let her take her time, and it helped me to stay present and focused. I had been practicing for this all week.
We spent most of the morning at the kitchen table staring at my cell phone, waiting for the latest word from my husband. He called to say they were checked into the hospital and waiting for a room. Then he called to tell me they were taking blood but wouldn’t have the results for an hour and a half. Then they were waiting for an EKG, then waiting for a doctor, waiting for an angiogram, waiting for information, waiting to see what the coming days would hold for us. In between phone calls, Mom and I ate soup and grapes and looked at baby pictures of my husband, all the time sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. At one point she said I didn’t have to babysit her. I told her I didn’t think of it that way. “We’re both waiting,” I said. “We might as well wait together.”
“It’s hard not to let your imagination wander,” she said. I told her that was normal and then tried to bring her back to the present moment: She and I sitting at the table together, dad in the hospital, getting the care he needed, none of us knowing what would be. A therapist once described it to me as anxiety on the edge of the unknown, a difficult place to rest. But we practiced together all day.
Steve’s dad had triple by-pass surgery on Friday. He sailed through it and is on his way to recovery. My book and my work (and this newsletter) have been on hold all week. I worry about when I’ll get back into the swing of my life, when I’ll be productive again. A good friend wrote the following in an e-mail: “Your practice is staying in the present moment with your family now.” I think that’s good advice. That’s what I’m trying to do, be here now with them and for them. Later I’ll write about it!
Quotation:
Knowing where you are can be a source of creative stability. If you are in Chicago you can go to Rome. If you ain’t no place you can’t go nowhere.
Richard Hugo, “Writing off the Subject”
Writing Topics:
Waiting
Where I am
Most of you are aware that Natalie Goldberg will be in Austin in just a few weeks, promoting the paperback edition of Old Friend From Faraway. On Wednesday, April 1, at 7 p.m., she will speak and sign books at Congregation Beth Israel (3901 Shoal Creek). Please help me welcome Natalie to Austin and find out why she is such a beloved teacher.
My best to everyone.
Saundra