Keeping a Notebook

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I am an aficionado of notebooks. In addition to my big Lee-Valley Everyman’s Journal, which I write in at home, every morning, I carry around a smaller notebook that fits in whatever bag I’m using. I like leather-bound, smaller notebooks that fit in a purse; but lately I’ve been using plain old composition books, a stack of which I bought last year for $1 each.

These smaller notebooks are for poems, ostensibly — I started the practice back in my “one bad poem” phase (which lasted for 5 years) — but I also scribble character sketches and quotes and reminders in them. I write down reading recommendations, and I write down scraps from books I’m reading (Someone by Alice McDermott; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson [again]).

Here’s an unattributed quote that found its way in just the other day:

IF YOU WANT SOMETHING YOU HAVE NEVER HAD
YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING YOU HAVE NEVER DONE

List items: Send Mary Oliver poem to Therese; Xarelto lawsuit?; Kristin Neff, on-line guided meditations; pachad, yirah — two kinds of fear (courtesy Tara Mohr); big new (?) ferryboat Tokitae, not usually on this run; call K.M.; find Kahlil Gibran‘s poem, “Your Children Are Not Your Children”; write a blog post about C.D.’s “Lick Your Rats” discussion (lecture?).

Since the first of the year, I have been attempting to write 200 words a day on my new novel (vs. the old one which is at the editing stage) and I’ve filled up this occasional notebook pretty fast. I’m just about to retire it, so I thought I’d go through it to see what I’d left undone. And then I thought I’d share it with you.

It’s good to be portable. What’s your notebook?

 

 

World Peace, and Poetry

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When I heard that my friend Carla Shafer was teaching a poetry workshop in Bellingham on Feb. 28, I told her I would attend. One of my daughters goes to Western Washington University, and I thought I could have lunch with her, and thus kill two birds with one stone.

I didn’t pay much attention to the topic of the workshop–yes, I really have been that busy, just kind of moving from one thing to another, keeping my head down–but “killing two birds” was not in keeping with the day.

It turned out that Annie was going to be home for the weekend. It turned out that I was mucho stressed about my mother, kind of (not kind of, really) depressed, in fact. I woke up Thursday morning with a sore throat and decided that I would tell Carla I was sick and not attend the workshop afterall.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. I talked to a friend about being depressed, and she gave me an assignment to do something that brings me joy. Joy? I laughed nervously.

I just want to nap, I said. I just want to bury myself in a mystery novel and stay in bed all day. And that brings you joy? she said.

Well, I said, poetry used to bring me joy, and I was supposed to go to a workshop Saturday morning.

Then go, she said. And so I did.

I had an absolutely amazing day. In addition to being about poetry and poets, the purpose of the day was an award ceremony hosted by “World Peace Poets.” I saw a film about Oregon poet William Stafford. I drafted a new poem. I met a number of Bellingham and British Columbia poets, saw a few old friends. And, as a bonus, was able to have dinner with my friend Carla.

World peace, and poetry. Can it get any better?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ZOWwW2agQ&w=560&h=315]

“I’m fine!”

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Long ago, back in my restaurant service-supervisor days (yes, I was such a thing), I had a boss named Stan who had been a Marine, and never really recovered. I forget what in the Marines. But he still had the haircut and the posture, if not the physique. He was a district manager and he dropped in a couple times a month. I opened 2 or 3 restaurants with him. If he asked you how things were going and you said, “Fine,” he said, “Fine! That’s when we roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

Fine, a fine word with lots of meanings. I went to Merriam Webster on-line to check and found the following:

Free from impurity; very thin in gauge or texture–not coarse–very small (fine print)–keen (a knife with a fine edge)–very precise or accurate; physically trained or hardened to efficiency (said of an athlete or an animal); delicate, subtle or sensitive in perception (a fine taste in art); superior in kind, quality, or appearance; ornate (as in writing); very well, more than okay (often ironic–Stan was right!).

Then there’s a fine as in a penalty (a traffic fine), and fine as an intensifier, like very, and all of these deriving from the same root as words like fin (as in fish fin). Think finish, the end. 

Not quite sure where I’m going with this, except it’s something that I’ve been thinking about. A friend confided that she can’t stand to keep a journal. She asked what I do, “lists?” Sometimes I write lists. I usually include a paragraph on “what happened yesterday.” But I keep going, past that, into what’s happening in my brain, in my — well, for lack of a better word, in my heart.

When I’m stuck, I write questions. Sometimes I ask myself questions, and sometimes “I” answer. I sometimes write prayers. I write down quotations from things I’m reading. Sometimes I write snippets of poems or character sketches or short scenes.

I reread my journal every so often (especially the current one, but sometimes older ones) and I try to pick out topics that recur so I can write about them again. I’m sure that anyone else would find my pages mind-numbingly repetitive, boring! But when I worked in restaurants, back in the day, writing in a spiral bound notebook (in 100s of spiral bound notebooks, morning after morning and week and month and year after year), kept me alive. It kept the essential, moody, dreaming, creative me alive. Eventually, writing was what helped me reach what Julia Cameron calls “escape velocity.”

Writing 3 pages in a notebook every morning–even now, when writing is my job–drops me beneath the surface of my life. I can’t lie to myself when I write in my journal. (Later, I might ignore or willfully forget what I wrote, but it’s all there.)

You can’t write “I’m fine” for 3 pages. (Not unless you want to bore even yourself silly.) Certainly you can’t write “I’m fine” for 3 pages multiplied over 12 weeks of writing.

“But even if you never share a sentence of your diary with anyone else, you will share it through your life. Its existence will touch other people by the way it changes you and permits you to develop in self-awareness, directness, and honesty. As you acquire and refine the talent for helping yourself in the diary, you will grow in your ability to understand and nourish others. While it permits you to take responsibility for your own emotional well-being, it also opens the way for a deep understanding of human nature.” -Tristine Rainer, The New Diary

Keeping a journal is kind of like my own, portable Stan, that bossy, buzz-cut ex-Marine who won’t let me get away with bullshit. It’s a fine practice and it gets me past “fine.” It gets me through the nitty-gritty of everyday stuff. It gets me down to the finer stuff. Over and over.

My Week 11 Check-in

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As regular readers of this blog know, I’ve been working my way through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way with a group of friends. I am nearing the end, and I have been putting off writing this check-in for three days. But now I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time on it. So I thought I’d be brave and share it here, too.

CAM00323I am now — unbelievably — on Week 12 of The Artist’s Way: “Recovering a Sense of Faith.”
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Unbelievably? It does feel as though I’ve been keeping this journal (those morning pages) for 3 months; that’s not the unbelievable bit. But I don’t feel “done.” The week 12 task that most resonates for me is, “Reread this book.” I feel as though there was something ELSE that I was meant to break through, or into, or out of. In this final chapter, I’m reminded that even when we don’t see it (change? improvement? direction?), it’s always already there: “Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise.” (Julia Cameron, 195)
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What was it I expected? What did I get that I didn’t expect?
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I don’t give myself enough credit for being on an end-of-life journey with my mother…for the amount of parenting my three daughters still and constantly seem to need…for being at the end-stage of a novel (which seems to require more commitment than I have available at present). I don’t get enough sleep. I mean to go to the gym, but I don’t. I eat the wrong foods, and just when I think I’ve proved to myself that I can do without a glass of wine in the evening, I open another bottle. I decide to cut back to one cup of coffee per day, and find myself drinking 2 double lattes in the afternoon (why don’t I sleep at night?). I set aside a morning for my husband, and he wakes up with a bad cold, feeling miserable. I resolve to spend less money, and my 15 year old drops her phone on the driveway and smashes it. I promise my editor 50 pages, and my sister calls and says Mom needs me.
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Fortunately, the morning pages are portable. I have packed them to The Haven in Allyn every week (and twice a week) for 3 months. I’ve written them at Caffe Ladro in Edmonds, on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry, in Starbucks (Belfair) and in Mom’s room. In my sister’s guest room.
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I get up every morning and write my three morning pages. That has been a constant. I am remembering (sometimes) to play. “Life is meant to be an artist date. That’s why we were created.” (198) Oh!
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So, Bethany, Bethany-dear, Wise Self (!): Make healthy choices. Be kind to yourself. Be very, very kind. (And healthy choices ARE kind!)
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Keep writing. Have faith in the process.
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Oh, and this is supposed to the a “check-in,” isn’t it? I can’t claim to have had a deliberate Artist’s Date this week, but in a spare moment (early for a lunch date with my
husband), I dropped by The ArtSpot in Edmonds (on Main, or follow the link for more information) and I discovered that they have an Artist’s Way circle. They have a six-week art class based on The Artist’s Way, and they have a Wednesday drop-in class once a month. I signed up for the March 4 class, 6-8. If any of you can join me, that would be great.
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I am committed to each of your journeys, and I know you are at various weeks. Expect me to keep circling back (and continuing the chapter highlights). Thanks for hanging in with me this long, for cheering me on, and each other. I look forward to reading your check-ins.
(And I will check-in next week, too.)
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Yours in Love and Play, Bethany