Comfort book

I know many people who have comfort foods-- I guess I do too-- but yesterday i discovered (again) that that isn't where I really find comfort. And I found a comfort book. It's a book I have read cover-to-cover once and read snippets of many times. I realized that, whenever i am reall tired or stressed, and i reach out to my bookshelf (filled, BTW, with many books I really want to read and have been meaning to for months), I always end up sitting down with "The Treehouse" by Naomi Wolf. I don't get to the new books, or the books that are still unread but have gotten old sitting on my shelf, but i always come away feeling comforted and at peace... which, i guess, is the reason i reach for that bookshelf anyway.

So, why "The Treehouse"? Is it a brilliant book? I'm not sure... i guess that depends on what you bring to it. The writing isn't flashy, but simple. It's basically a collection of essays about the author's father-- a very interesting man, it seems!-- and about the lessons he taught her. Because he was a poet and a teacher, poetry-- in the broadest sense of the term, poetry not just in the context of writing poems but poetry as an attitude towards life-- is the theme of the whole book. In the author's words he was the kind of man "who spent much of his life convincing othersiwe sensible people to quite their comfortable jobs and follow their heart's passions." the other structure in the book is the process of building a treehouse (in case you are wondering where the name came from)... the author and her now 80-something father are building a treehouse for her daughter at their house in the countryside. It is in the process of building this trehouse that he teaches her all these lessons about poetry that she, as a rebellious daughter and a professor herself, had long resisted.

The chapters of the book are organized by the lessons he taught his creative writing students, and the first one, the most important one, is probably a large part of why i reach for this book in times of stress. The lesson is: Be still, and listen. So simple, so profound. When and how and why did we lose that simple ability to be still and listen? Listen not just to noise around us, but listen to silence. So much of my life is a clamor of so many different noises, and I have to consciously find time, early in the morning before anyone wakes up, just to catch those few quiet moments with myself. But because that first lesson is the undertone for much of the book's attitude-- towards the poet, towards life-- this book always manages to calm my frazzled nerves and help me take a deep breath.

What about you? Do you have a comfort book? Leave me a comment telling me which it is and why!

Well, here I am again, and I can't believe it's only been 5 days-- it feels like a month or more since I wrote! What can I say? it's been a long five days!

I've been meaning to write for a while, but i have been and still am too exhausted for the detailed essays i want to put down. Done too much "serious" writing in the process of applying to grad schools and fellowships, and I have a headache because of a bad cold, so there's no way those essays in the offing are getting written just yet. Maybe another time. For today, I want to explore this stress itself.

stopped going to my old pottery class a few months ago... for many reasons, but the main reason was just that they emphasized technique and skill too much, never allowed space for playing with clay. I appreciated their emphasis on skill, but i'm doing pottery to RELAX... wasn't worth it if i was just going to get stressed out over it.

Recently, a friend of my father's mentioned this lady who is a professional potter and has a studio about 2 km away from my house. She doesn't give formal classes but she was happy to meet up. It felt worth investigating, especially since she is so close by, so i called her and walked over to her house a few days ago. I really enjoyed talking to her, and I decided to take up her offer to do informal classes at her studio-- structure it according to whatever time and day works for us both, and pay her for materials and lessons per class rather than have a structured 6 month plan.

In retrospect, i think i know what made me accept her offer so readily. In a pause in our conversation the first day, she suddenly said, "I just love pottery... it's such a great feeling to make these things." She went on to talk about how excited she is when she opens the kiln, how she sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night to check the temperature on the kiln, to see if it can be opened an hour earlier. She talked of the feel of the clay in her hand. I told her how i often used to stay in the ceramics studio at college late at night, right until it closed, especially during my advanced class-- shaping a sculpture, testing a glaze, painting a finished piece. And i realized just how long it had been since i had talked to someone about the sheer joy of creation. I knew I wanted to study under soemone who knew that joy, who hadn't forgotten the pure excitement of opening a kiln even decades after she made her first pot.

I think that's something i need to visit in my writing as well-- just the sheer fun of it. Lately, so much of my writing has been high-pressure, writing to meet deadlines, writing to try and fit as much important information as possible into page limits, word limits, and even character limits! In the process, I haven't had time to savor words, to roll them over my tongue, to write gibberish when I feel like it. I haven't had time to actively participate in writers' groups, to share words with others who love them as much as I do. And somewhere in that process, writing is becoming like my old pottery class- something i know I love, but something i'm lately jsut not being able to enjoy that much.

I found a way out of the dilemma in the case of pottery (I went for my first class yesterday, and I did enjoy it much more than I had in a while; she's probably stricter about technique than even my old instructors, but it's not restricting, perhaps because she starts the class with "so, what do you want to make today?" and lets me follow through with my answer). I need to find a similar way out in writing. And soon, before the blank page overpowers me completely!

So, here I am again, after another couple of weeks. A crazy couple of weeks (but then again, I say that every time, don't I?). Here are some quick thoughts and summaries on my life right now.

1) Mom broke her hand. On the 10th of Jan, she joined me for an office picnic. We were playing frisbee, she slipped on some wet grass, and she fractured her right wrist in 3-4 places. Had surgery a few days later, and her arm's still in a cast (will be for 6 weeks!). Once the dust settled and the initial worries about the surgery were over, once she was back home from hospital, I could start processing those few days. First, of course, there is the sense of the stupidity of that accident... maybe all accidents are stupid, but a little fall in the park seems like a terrible reason for 2 months of pain and dependence! Once I got over the frustration and worry, though, i also realized just how much hospitals put life into perspective. Hospitals have always been part of my life, I practically grew up in the eye clinic, and lately they've been more a part of my life because of Nana's and Mom's illnesses. And there, in hospitals-- in elevators and public spaces in hospitals-- you really get a sense of so may people's stories. It's one of the few public places where people are openly vulnerable, are afraid, cry, shriek with pain or with joy or with grief. So much human drama takes place in hospital lobbies that it can be quite overwhelming. But it's also powerful and humbling. How can you lament a broken wrist when you overhear a family grieving over a young man who has just been diagnosed HIV positive and also has a fatal liver disease? every grief deserves its own place, it is true, but hospitals put them in those places, prevent the broken wrists from taking over the places that need to be reserved for the liver diseases. (Disclaimer: I hate hospitals... the smell of antiseptic makes me gag, at least partially because i have far too many unpleasant memories associated with it. But even in that hatred, i have found that they help me regain perspective).

2) as i write still more grduate fellowship essays (will they ever end?), i had an interesting conversation with a close friend the other day. I was telling him how one of my essays starts witha conversation that he and i have often had... and that he was an important part of that particular essay. He was curious to know mroe and to read the essay, but i hesitate to show him it; i don't think he'll like it. Another close common friend also wants to read it, and again I hesitate. It's also an essay that I would never be able to publish or put up on the blog because to do so would be an invasion ofhis privacy. Another personal statement i wrote left me in a similar situation with someone from college... i would love for him to read my personal statement, but I cannot show it to him because he would probably be highly uncomfortable with it, and I definitely cannot show it to many others because again there are huge privacy issues at stake. Of course, neither mentions names or details that would help a stranger identify them, which is why i am ok with strangers on the admissions committee reading them, but common friends and acquaintances would probably guess right away. All this is making me mighty uncomfortable. I am realizing how much i will have to walk this fine line between public and private if i ever plan to publish my work. I am ok with exposing myself (it took a while but i did finally get there, mroe or less) but, for obvious reasons, not with exposing the lives of others i love. And yet, i find that i exist in relationships, find that it is impossible for me to write about myself without writing abotu the people close to me. Nothing about me makes sense in isolation. I know, I know, it sounds redundant-- obvious-- but there it is, a simple and hughly uncomfortable fact when it comes to personal writing. not sure where to take that, but wanted to put it out there.

OK, i could write at least as much mroe as i already wrote about. But this was supposed to be a warm-up exercise before i start writing those essays. It won't do to spent any more time on a warm up. So, more when i sit down at the computer next time round.

Two New Poems

Now that i am done with graduate application essays and portfolios, i can finally find time to play with words again (yes, yes, i see the irony there). Here, then, are drafts of two new poems... the first is about a necklace given to me by Mauro, my program coordinator and dear friend from Mexico. For the second one, you might want to look up "Delhi iron pillar" on wikipedia for context, especially if you aren't from this part of the world. Both are drafts, both need more work, but the exhilaration of finally writing poetry again is too great to allow me to leave these in a desk drawer for a few more weeks!

A Necklace of Seeds

I wear a necklace of seeds

from an earth that is still sacred.

Watermelon seeds and the tears

of saints that have traveled

exactly halfway across the world

to be with me.

I rub the necklace like a rosary,

then place it against my cheek.

Through the pricking of some seeds

and the smoothness of others,

that earth speaks to me. Be well,

it says, for I am here.

Here. Hear.

THE DELHI IRON PILLAR

Long ago, before the fences were built,

we hugged the iron pillar. Eight or nine,

we must have been, out on our first

school excursions, arms clearly too tiny

to go around. We stood there, backs

pressed against cold iron, hands reaching out,

groping for each other, across six tons

of sixteen hundred years old iron,

yet unrusted. Something good

was to happen if the hands met.

2009

It's 2009, and I'm writing because i want to start the year by writing. Really, that's about the only reason. I've spent SO much time lately writing graduate school essays that I am otherwise fed up of staring at the computer screen.

Today was good, though. I got into the flow. I wrote 1 3/4 essays for SLC today. They want 3 long essays, and i still love their application. Am I just nuts? Nope, I'm a writer, I'm supposed to love writing, so of course I would enjoy the 3 essays. Yeah, right, that's why ;)

Did I make New Years' Resolutions this year? My grandma wanted to know, and I am not sure what the answer is. Yes, I decided to do certain things I haven't done before, even committed to doing them. But then again, that i do every few weeks or months-- find things that i think are important and commit to doing them. Part of my Buddhist practice, I guess, this process of making determinations and working to fulfill them. Ok, so I did that again. Does that mean I made New Year's Resolutions or not?

I had something a little more interesting to say, actually, about my friends and the notion of arranged marriages. Also some more sappy stuff to say about gratitude. And some interesting reflections that emerged in the process of writing those 3 essays. But I am too tired today, spent too many hours writing already. So it will have to wait.

In the meantime, here's wishing you a beautiful 2009!