bittersweet thoughts on the Ides of March

“Bittersweet” (or douce-amère, sweetbitter in French) sums up the memories that are seeping into thought this morning. Ambivalent and a little sad, a little happy.

What triggered it was the following email: “I last wrote to you on 3/10/20, two years ago, to cancel the writing workshop, Write YOUR Story.” The rest of the letter explains hopes for recommencing the workshop but still…

Two years have disappeared, two years of isolation, anxiety, and collective worry. Two years is a lot when you are only 8 years old. It’s been two years while those kids whose story, which never even got a title and remains unfinished, have been growing up. [BTW: The spring 2020 group story was a reverse fairy tale, modeled on “Hans in Luck,” by the Brothers Grimm. Our protagonist: a 12-year-old girl who loves gardening. In keeping with the original genre, our heroine is given, and loses, money and treasures one after another. At the ending, she’d be left with nothing, or at least no material profit. I was so curious to know how they’d spin that, the nothingness.]

It is bittersweet, the memory of covid-19 and all who have died, who were sick, who remain devastated by memory or physical disability, that plague. Equally fragile are those who got better but who remain terrified by the memory of having a plague.

Yet look at the sweet hopefulness in the children’s faces seen here. If ever we needed a reason to keep going, it’s in these faces.

Autum C., 2015

Italy M., 2015

Sandra S., 2015

Look at those adorable girls who joined the class in 2015, seen above. They are teenagers now, adults. Yet I bet they’ll remember the warm feeling of fun we all shared, how fun it was to write and illustrate Nabiki and Ruby: An Outer Space Fairy Tale.

That creative energy has to be good for the planet!

May your activities this week, as we head into the notorious IDES OF MARCH, be creative and good for the planet too. Despite the horrors that have transpired on March 15 in years past, history does not need to repeat itself. We can do better. We must!

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remember Thoreau

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I’m sick at heart about Amanda Gorman’s new modeling contract. https://people.com/style/amanda-gorman-signs-with-img-models/   It may seem unfair to thwart a young woman’s aspirations for fame and fortune, and she is certainly beautiful enough to grace the pages of fashion magazines and elite runways world-over. But to have discovered in her a poet of such transcendent grace and wisdom at such a young age has made her into a magical figure for us in this time, and we wish her to rise, like a goddess, to lead the way out of this uniquely American morass.

It is unfair, I repeat, to expect her to exert such independence at such a tender age (22 years old). Yet one can wish another future would be ahead for her. Will it be possible to remain undistracted by the tawdry parasitism of social media and the crap world of fashion advertising, and to go on creating original words of wisdom?  Seems unlikely.

But here’s hoping.

And for the rest of you writers out there, who are not receiving modeling contracts or other worldly fame for a poem, I append the following quotes from Walden, which no one can refute. I challenge you to keep on writing, remain focused, prove that words can still have lasting value, even in 2021.

Remember Thoreau.

“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be translated into every language, and not only be read but actually breathed from all human lips…

When the illiterate and perhaps scornful trader has earned by enterprise and industry his coveted leisure and independence, and is admitted to the circles of wealth and fashion, he turns inevitably at last to those still higher but yet inaccessible circles of intellect and genius, and is sensible only of the imperfection of his culture and the vanity and insufficiency of all his riches, and further proves his good sense by the pains which he takes to secure for his children that intellectual culture whose want he so keenly feels…”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience, ed. Michael Meyer (New York: Penguin, 1983),  147-148.  Original pub. 1854.

Photo of Inauguration poet Amanda Gorman, photographed in 2018, has signed with IMG Models.(Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press)

Day seven, happy again, and already looking forward to the next quilt!

What a difference a day makes.  Gone are the dark clouds that bore down on my spirit yesterday. Today I finished up the machine quilting with relative ease and prepared a binding out of light blue cloud material.  It will give the quilt a light and airy feeling; hopefully it will help the little boy fall asleep and have happy dreams.

Two things helped make today more productive: 1) the confidence gained from yesterday’s struggles and the technical progress achieved; and 2) the happy prospect of meeting a new friend after work. We met to discuss the “Write YOUR Story” workshop which we’ll be teaching together this fall to local kids.

My new friend is a collector of vintage typewriters (is there any other kind?!). I remember them well; once upon a time, I wrote an entire thesis on a manual typewriter like the one pictured here.  It was hard work and definitely discouraged any rewriting one might think of doing. The anguish of retyping entire pages after finding a mistake, and having to measure the paper for footnote placements at the bottom, is still a painful memory.  Thank goodness for laptops!

Yet in listening to his enthusiastic description of old typewriters, and anecdotes about the people he’s been meeting at a local typewriter repair shop, I started to feel enthusiastic for writing in ways I thought I’d lost forever…  It occurred to me that all kinds of new vistas may open up, like holding Type-Ins at a local coffee shop, or maybe setting up a booth for poetry-writing at the West Seattle Market next summer! The sound of clicking keys and the bell ringing as the carriage flies back and forth would bring a new dimension to the scene; it would prompt a flood of memories for some of us and intrigue others who’ve been raised on flat soundless screens. Who knows what little treasures of poetry and prose may materialize on site? Wouldn’t it be fun to get kids involved too?!

Meanwhile, I’m already thinking about my next baby quilt.  It will be for a fellow T’ai chi student at the Seattle Kung Fu Club who’s having a baby this fall, and everybody at the club will be invited to submit a scrap of fabric for the quilt.  The paper you see on the quilt-in-progress has the Chinese character for child; it will become a sign inviting donations of fabric for her quilt.

Connecting with these new people is the secret ingredient to happiness and creative development.  Getting to know people in my new/old hometown, and thinking of ways to enrich our lives together, gives me the impetus I need to keep going as a teacher, a writer, and as a maker of quilts.  That emotional foundation makes sense, even though I didn’t realize it until just now.  As Twyla Tharp writes in her wonderful book, The Creative Habit: “Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.”

That’s it for now; bon weekend!

quiet, happy anticipation… as a new group of people comes to life

Hello!

This morning is a time of quiet, happy anticipation over what lies ahead: the first meeting of a new group of kids who will form the “Write YOUR Story” team for Spring 2019! I only know two of the nine children enrolled, and as all teachers know, this moment before the names on the list take on the faces, voices and personalities of real people, is a thrilling time. You wonder who will be the silly, and who has a more serious turn of spirit, who will be a force of calm, which one will chat nonstop, and which one will remind you of still waters running deep. Of course, the same child can incarnate all those qualities, if you know them and see them long enough: we are all changeable creatures.

But the news was so awful today as most days; I almost felt numbed into sadness after reading the daily papers and weekly magazines we get here…  Until something reminded me of my role, which is to inspire people, and pushed me to seek out a finer sort of sustenance.  And so I returned to Mai-Mai Sze’s Tao of Painting  for a refresher.

 

What Mai-Mai Sze reminded me is that the little group of writers will create a spirit, an esprit de corps, that is unlike any other. It will come from each of us and form a collective feeling. How that happens is a mystery to me. But I find it endlessly fascinating anyway and I know no-one like Mai-Mai Sze to guide such reflection. Here, then, are some of her key thoughts on the Ch’i:

“Ch’i is an elusive term, one whose meaning can be sensed without difficulty but which no simple definition can cover. … it has to be grasped through intuition.

Its significance is perhaps best suggested by its literal meaning of ‘breath,’ if one remembers the ancient concept of breath as soul and spirit.The Sanskrit prana, the Greek pneuma, and the Latin spiritus have the same import as ch’i, likewise ruah in Biblical Hebrew and the term nefesh, described by Zohar as the breath and substance of the Fourth Sphere, the world of physical existence.  […]

The character ch’i is composed of ch’i (vapor) and mi (rice or grain). It is supposed to have meant originally the spirits distilled from rice or the vapor rising from the fermentation of rice or other grain. Ch’i (vapor) also stands for ‘clouds,’ and its old forms closely resemble bands or ribbons of clouds.  […] the original form of the character was made up of three wavy strokes, indicating clouds or vapors. The three strokes, the shortest at the top, the longest at the bottom, suggest the form of an ascending spiral, the sign of circulation upward and One-ward.  […]

Ch’i is manifest in men and things as breath and soul and spirit. In painting, Ch’i is both the creative resources of the painter and the essential vitality–spiritual, divine, and creative–that can be transmitted to a painting and perceived by the spectator. […]

That the meaning and importance of the concept did not essentially change may be seen in a passage from the XVIIIth-century painter Chang Kêng: ‘Ch’i yün may be expressed by ink, by brushwork, by an idea, or by absence of idea … It is something beyond the feeling of the brush and the effect of ink, because it is the moving power of Heaven, which is suddenly disclosed. But only those who are quiet can understand it.'”

–Mai-Mai Sze, The Tao of Painting pp. 52-55.

As you go about your day, stop for a second and witness life happening. In the short-term, you might consider the fact that you are still breathing, though you may have forgotten to do so. Secondly, look up! The winds are still creating swirling patterns of cloud and light, though you may rarely gaze upon them. Those are short-term examples of life going on. But what are you doing that is so important right now? Why not take a minute to consider the long-term implications of your time on this planet, too…

My work (self-imposed; I do it for fun!) is to meet with a group of young children and begin a new semester of “Write YOUR Story.” That is, my job is to inspire kids with patience and camaraderie (and a bit of toughness, to take criticism in stride) in order that we will be able to write a book together as a group. Then we’ll illustrate it, and finally, when all that is done, each child will write his or her own story. Their boundless energy and excitement may make it hard for them to sit still and listen, at first. Their nerves may make it hard for them to read aloud in smooth rhythms; they may stumble over the words, at first.

But I guarantee that sometime in the next fourteen weeks, an amazing thing will happen and only those who are present will witness it. (But you can make it happen too, wherever you are!)  Even the youngest children witness it, every semester. It is creativity: the ch’i in its purest essence, bounding to life again… and once it is expressed, our lives will be changed forever more. We will feel and remember that joy; it will give us wings!

 

small business, big business

–Thanks to Dirk Ercken for sharing the Zen sand stone garden above.

Business is on my mind these days. It is a very new and odd sensation for a French teacher. In fact, it appears that I am moving through a fascinating phase of life: doing three things simultaneously that would seem impossible to coexist.

1. finishing up my academic career with a full-time load of teaching (bright and highly motivated) students and all that ensues (grading papers, office hours, helping people revise their writing, etc.)
2. launching a small business—the Honey Girl Books and Gifts “Valentine’s Special” starts Jan. 31.  Enter code 03 for 50% off a special pillow today!

and most importantly,

3. studying Zen philosophy and practicing T’ai chi daily to deepen my health, serenity, and well-being.

The soft and comforting gifts I sew are, for me, a source of marvel and joy.

 

“Marvel and joy?” you might wonder. “It’s just a home décor item.”

“Maybe to you,” I’d say.

[And I would think: the process is fraught with wonder, when you work with a 90-year-old sewing machine inherited from your grandma.

There’s that spiritual thing, first, as if you’re surrounded by a small but ever-present group of benevolent ghosts, helping you on. And second there’s a physical reason for the sense of joy (and relief!) I get from finishing projects, because my machine is broken in back. So I have to hold the motor pulley against the hand wheel with my right hand and steer the fabric through the machine with my left hand. I know it’s insane. But I love the new creativity I’ve been feeling for the past year and wonder if it’s not due in part to activating some other sector of the brain, as I’ve become more ambidextrous. One day I’ll get it fixed. But for now, sewing on that White Rotary is sometimes like a contact sport, navigating the fat pillows under the cast iron machine to sew the hems is my battle.

Until it’s won!  And it is won, night after night, despite all the mistakes and revising and redoing. And they are beautiful little creatures that almost seem alive to me; thus naming them makes sense. Last night I made “Happy” in Spring Yellow Plaid and “Love is sweet” in Hearts and snowflakes.   (images coming soon on the HGBG website)]

“OK, ok,” you might reply, if I dared to say all that out loud, “I get that. Sort of. But isn’t it just a set formula for those pillows? Don’t you get sick of making them?”

I would answer “no.”  And probably look away, because that’s personal too, you see.

So I would think to myself:  [Absolutely not! It’s a refreshing change for a long-time workaholic academic. After so many years reading other people’s words and regurgitating them into new patterns, sitting on a chair, it feels so good to move around!  And my mind feels very alive working with the inventory of fabrics I’ve built up. I made the Tranquility Pillow ordered by Catherine into an asymmetrical, Chinese-looking design that emphasizes the emptiness and mystery of the forest. This winter model has a tiny creek (“le petit ruisseau”) running quietly along the sides of the wood, instead of a broad river or waterfall, such as I’ve put on other Tranquility Pillows.”

But that makes me sound kind of crazy. Just saw Phantom Thread!  Perfectionists unite! (as if that were possible).]

So that is why sewing pillows feels like a marvel and a joy.

Sewing is difficult and highly detailed. I frequently hurt my hands with pins and needles and sometime the sewing machine needle goes right through a finger, as it did last night. I am a passionate artisan more than an expert and love the sense of being a beginner and constantly refining my art.

Beginning. Maybe that’s why the things I make sometimes have the quality of an accident. As Alan Watts describes in The Way of Zen:

“this is not a masterful mimicry of the accidental, an assumed spontaneity in which the careful planning does not show. It lies at a much deeper and more genuine level, for what the culture of Taoism and Zen proposes is that one might become the kind of person, who, without intending it, is the source of marvelous accidents.” (28)

***

Back to small business and big business coming together.

The fact of starting a small business pushes all kinds of very practical and time-sensitive issues to the forefront of one’s consciousness. Mind is bombarded with urgent demands and can easily become overwhelmed, with thoughts such as, “There are so many details to manage!”  “This business costs lots of money. Will it be worth it?” “Will I get paid ok, or will my clients rip me off?” Such thoughts cause the shoulders to tighten, the jaw to clench, and a panicky feeling to rise from the belly.

On the other hand, the fact of studying Zen and practicing T’ai chi and meditation on a daily basis pushes the Body-Mind—located in the Tan tien two inches below the navel–into a more powerful focus. By keeping our thoughts there while meditating or doing the Form, the body naturally starts to hold the back straighter and makes the torso feel tight and strong like a spring. Yet shoulders are loose and comfortable. Vision shifts as well, so that interesting things appear everywhere, every single day, all the time.

Will my new-found and hard-wrought serenity withstand the ravages of greed and competition?

I think so.

A business is sometimes small. It simply is.

The big business is life!

And the art of living well.

Good day to you, reader!