“I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back I can see that I used my family and my jobs and everything else I could come up with as excuses. I kept myself ridiculously busy because I was afraid if I had any extra time, I might have to look at the fact that I’d chickened out on living the life I was born to live.” -Claire Cook
My darling husband says that I got the poem almost right, but that Hopkins didn’t mean a large hawk like a red-tailed hawk–his Windhover was the smaller kestrel, a falcon.
Driving to my parents’ farm, out highway 6 in Lewis County, you can sometimes see a kestrel. A colorful, beautiful bird.
I borrowed the pictures from Bird Web (which is worth a look).
In my peregrinations, I learned that falcons and hawks are not even in the same family, and I found that our American kestrel is not (of course) precisely Hopkins’ kestrel. I think.
I also found a blog called The Broken Tower (which I am now following…does this count as reading?), which has another lovely, and even more detailed description of “The Windhover.”
The Artist’s Way, week four, asks us to give up reading. Julia Cameron promises, “If you feel stuck in your life or in your art, few jump starts are more effective than a week of reading deprivation.” Down the page a bit, I highlighted this passage (yes, we’re still allowed to read The Artist’s Way):
“Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool–and a very frightening one. Even thinking about it can bring up enormous rage. For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” (87)
I’ve done this before, of course, and I knew it was coming. In the abstract, it didn’t sound like that big of a deal. A week! Hah! I can do anything for one week!
And I know that I’m a reading addict. I know that giving up reading has been a powerful experience for me in the past. (Remember the Responsible Living workshop, to which I lugged not one but TWO BAGS of books, only to discover that I wasn’t going to be allowed to read for 3 days? Not even at night before falling asleep! And how powerful was that?)
So why all this reluctance?
I bargained for an extra day, thinking I could finish the Maisie Dobbs mystery at least (then I read 80 pages of an Alice McDermott novel instead; and a chapter from my new Rebecca Solnit collection, a Christmas gift, after 
all). I bargained with myself about whether or not I could read emails and blogs (emails, okay provisionally, but not blogs, I decided). Could I read my new issue of The Sun? (No.)
Next Tuesday morning, it will all be waiting for me. The last 44 pages of the Maisie Dobbs mystery will still be there and the story will roll on.
Meanwhile, I’m going to spend a little time working on poetry. I’m going to do some decluttering. I’m going to do a jig-saw puzzle.
I’m going to try–over the Christmas holiday–to be present with not only my family but also with my own thoughts and feelings.
Scary.
“I like to think of the mind as a room. In that room, we keep all of our usual ideas about life, God, what’s possible and what’s not. The room has a door. That door is ever so slightly ajar, and outside we can see a great deal of dazzling light. Out there in the dazzling light are a lot of new ideas that we consider too far-out for us, and so we keep them out there. The ideas we are comfortable with are in the room with us. The other ideas are out, and we keep them out.” -Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way (51)
The other day a friend wrote to me, explaining why she couldn’t do The Artist’s Way. 1) She was way too busy. It would be impossible to do Morning Pages as she didn’t have 15 or 20 minutes a day to devote to them. And then, 2) now that her children are older, she spends all of her time doing things solo, and has lots of personal time, so Artist’s Dates are completely unnecessary.
Huh?
It took me a little while to process this, and to realize that I make the same excuses, even now (even though I am committed). I’m too busy. I’m not busy enough, or (as I usually put it), I selfishly already spend plenty of time doing whatever it is I want to do….
Okay, Bethany, which one is it?
One of my favorite exercises from The Artist’s Way is the Imaginary Lives one–what other 5 lives can you imagine for yourself? I begin the exercise reluctantly, then I get into it. I would raise horses. Be a visual artist. A film-maker. A famous poet (key-note speaker at conferences! leading a group of poets on a trip to Ireland! 8 or 10 books of poems! devoted disciples!). A mystery-novelist (like Agatha Christie or Donna Leon, with 18-100 mysteries!).
It’s fun to imagine creating a different life, especially when you don’t have to actually create it. (It’s impossible! I could never do that!)
But then Julia Cameron asks us to imagine what one or two small pieces of one of those lives you might insert into this life. And that’s where the real fun begins. Crack that door open, just let a tiny bit of change in, and see what happens.
