Change One Thing

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The best advice I’ve ever been given for getting unstuck is not specific. Whatever it is you have been doing, you have to change one thing. It truly doesn’t matter what you change. If you’re right-handed, try brushing your teeth with your left hand. Do it for a week. Just as an experiment. You’ll experience other shifts as well. There’s something psychological that goes on, something at the level of the synapses.

I’ve known this for some years. I learned it while parenting toddlers. (I remember someone defining insanity for me, back then, as “Doing the exact same thing and expecting different results.” That could also, of course, define parenting toddlers — insanity, I mean.) I learned this lesson again when I was team-teaching a psychology/ college composition class. But there’s a difference between knowing a thing and practicing it.

My friend Liz asked me this morning how the time off is going. “Good but not as good as I’d like,” I told her. “I keep over-scheduling myself and spending time doing everything but writing.”

Liz is my mom’s age, and she is very wise. She looked thoughtful for a moment, and then she told me that when she is trying to get something done, when it really matters that she get it done, she writes it on her calendar. “Actually write it down,” she advised. “Write ‘8-12 writing’ on your calendar. Then when someone asks you to do anything, say, ‘Let me check my calendar.'” She patted me on the shoulder. “Give it a try,” she said.

I think I’ve just found my one thing.

 

 

Poets and Writers for Peace

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If you happen to be in Bellingham today, don’t forget the Poets and Writers for Peace event at St. James Presbyterian Church. See my “Upcoming Events” page for more information.

Here’s a poem from my friend, Carla Shafer, who organized this event.

 

If Words Were Bones

If words were bones
we would be wisdom
walking through time
down plazas knowing
pathways up mountains.
In groups, we would be
cooperation–all bones
dancing the circle,
wisely. Insight and
understanding our meter
and rhythm. Knowing by being,
would lead to perfect action
in such quiet, that the twinkling
of the stars would rattle
in our ears. A handshake–
between these bones
would silence argument.

      -Carla Shafer

“If we all wanted peace as much as we want a new television, we would have peace.” -John Lennon

Whine, whine, whine…

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I am in a whiny mood and having trouble concentrating on my work. Poor me! Then I remembered something from Jacob Glass.

“In Beverly Hills, right now” (he speaks with a curious emphasis, an urgency that falls on key words), “there are people bitterly complaining because they just got home from Paris, and now they have to pack for Hawaii!”

Last year I complained because I was teaching full-time. This year I am having to root around in the attic of my brain and find new reasons to complain. But, really, Bethany? Just do your work.

 

Piano Practice

Piano Practice

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When I was a little girl, eight or nine years old, it was decided that I should have piano lessons. My uncle–a high school math teacher (and later, the high school Principal, a sometimes formidable presence)–agreed to teach me. I began riding the bus home with my cousins on Wednesday afternoons. I remember being scared the first time, feeling an attack of shyness that made me want to run to Bus #2, driven by our neighbor, Mr. Rasmussen. But I was curious, too. I got on the unfamiliar bus and spent the afternoon–and subsequent Wednesday afternoons–watching TV stations that didn’t come in on our farm, and playing marbles. Later, I helped my Aunt Evelyn in the kitchen and ate dinner with the family.

After work, that first lesson, Uncle Billy came home and sat down on the piano bench to introduce me to the routine. I remember him from later lessons, sitting in his armchair, his arm waving like a metronome, counting out the beats for me. I never really caught on, I’m sorry to say.

But I absorbed lessons other than the obvious. One thing that was really different about that household, that made it different from my own, was the importance of music. Both a piano and an organ sat in the living room. My uncle, eventually tired of my struggling attempts, would sit down on the piano bench and show me how the music should sound. And then, losing himself in the music, he would begin playing something dark and difficult. He would lean close to my ear and narrate what the music illustrated. And it did. Storms unfurled outside the living room windows, wind and rain and thunder.

My uncle died yesterday, aged ninety. A good, long life. Still living at home. Married to my aunt Evelyn for at least 65 years.

I’m glad it rained today. I listened to a CD of piano music. I thought about how writing every day is like piano practice. You practice writing, even when it feels a little simple, a little like playing scales (Every Good Boy Does Fine). You practice to keep your hand in, to limber up, to get ready, to get proficient. You practice because that’s what you do.

I thought about all of those things, and I thought about my uncle, one of the great lights of my childhood.