Poetry Month: Tear It Down

by Jack Gilbert

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of racoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within the body.

2010 Roundup

Well, reassessment.  I'm supposed to be doing that.  It's February and usually I take time during February to set some new goals for myself for the year.  Before I do that I need to sit with my goals from last year and see what I accomplished.

Remember I made prayer flags last year depicting my goals for the year?  Here's a picture in case you forgot.

First, a map of Morocco.  The flag was to remind to be wise with money, pay off debt and save for a trip.  I give myself a B+ on this one.  I've paid some stuff off which is good and I've started saving toward what I hope is a trip to Haiti this summer to volunteer.

Second, "Any time you can tell your story in the form of a quest or pilgrimage, you'll be ahead of the game." --William Zinsser.  I set the goal to have my work published in three places last year.  I wrote a blog for Libuse Binder about Construction For Change, I published twelve recipes for Flock and three articles for Ocsplora, two of which were featured in the first ever print edition.  Success.

Third, the tree symbolizing the tattoo I want to get.  I didn't get that one but I did get this one...

Fourth, BOOKS!  I set the goal to read 25 books outside of school reading, I read 16.  Here's the list:  The Writing on Her Forehead, The Namesake, The End of Poverty, Dreaming of Baghdad, Arafat and the Dream of Palestine, Ecological Intelligence, Zen and the Art of Writing, The Fellowship of the Ring, Middlesex, Shanghai Girls, Savage Beauty: The Life Edna St. Vincent Millay, Half the Sky, The War of Art, A Poetry Handbook, Snow, Strength in What Remains.  For school I read: Brain Rules, Our Kind, The Government and Politics of the Middle East, Naked Lunch, On the Road, Veiled Threat and The Silenced Cry.  Total I read 24.  I win.

Fifth, the onion symbolizing cooking.  Did you read the part where I published 12 recipes? 

Sixth, the yoga person symbolizing self-care.  I got my migraines a bit more under control but I don't think I fulfilled the goal.  I didn't stick to a regular yoga practice which was the main part of the goal.  But there's always 2011.

An unexpected event this year was that I started painting.  See them here, here and here.  But here's one just in case you're lazy.

So, time for some new goals. Travel, reading, writing...and an old favorite is back.  Sit tight while I figure out 2011 and set your own goals while you're waiting.  If you need some help check out Chris or Jolie for inspiration.  They're the ones that inspired me to start this little yearly project.

Recently Added to My Bookshelf

1.  Descent into Chaos, Ahmed Rashid
2. Overtaken by Events, Ethan Casey
3. The Battle for God, Karen Armstrong
4. The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
5. What is the What, Dave Eggers
6. The Paul Farmer Reader
7. The Secret History of the American Empire, John Perkins
8. Justice, Michael J. Sandel
9.  When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress Disease Connections, Gabor Mate
10. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
11. Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
12. Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri
13. The Diary of Anias Nin, Volume 1
14. The Duel, Tariq Ali
15. The Crossing, Cormic McCarthy
16. Cities of the Plain, McCarthy
17. No Country For Old Men, McCarthy
18. The Road, McCarthy
19. Develpment as Freedom, Amartya Sen
20.  Failed States, Noam Chomsky
21. Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

Reassesment

Dear Blog,

I've been away for a while.  I'm sorry about that.  I've just been so very busy with school and work and many more excuses that I will not name here.  Now it's safe to say that I am back.  I've lowered my Netflix subscription to the smallest possible plan keeping me from hours of online television watching, I've purchased myself subscriptions to the Economist and Live Station so I can watch Al Jezeera and I've recently added about 20 more books to my book shelves.  Woah.

I know that I must write.  I must write because if I cease to write I will cease to exist.

And that brings me to passion.  Passion for writing.  Passion for human rights and development.  I just finished reading Mountains Beyond Mountains for the third time. For those of you who don't know the book, it's the story of Dr. Paul Farmer. (Actually, it's the story of Tracey Kidder following Dr. Paul Farmer around.)  It is Farmer, not Kidder who inspires me so much.  A medical anthropologist, Farmer is to the medical world what I can only dream of being to the development world.  I've just started The Paul Farmer Reader, an anthology of his writings and lectures on structural violence and his anthropological observations in Haiti.  Farmers words are stunning.  He presents the ever growing suffering of the world by giving voices to those who live their lives behind the walls constructed to keep them out of the view of the rich and comfortable.

As a bright young student with dreams heavily rooted in both international development and anthropology, I take his words and actions as a challenge.  I'm challenged to continually assess the reasons I give for going to school, for engaging in various committees in Student Leadership and for writing.   This is what I do at the start of every year--I reassess.



To be continued...

It Won't Be Like This Forever.

You know what will make me feel better?  Writing a blog. 

I have long been reciting to myself a mantra that sounds like this, “It won’t be like this forever.”  I say it because I know that it’s true.  I won’t always be pulled in a thousand directions, few of which I am passionate about, and being paid nada at a part-time retail job.  But for now I am…

School : 15 hrs/wk

Homework: 15 hrs/wk

Work : 25 hrs/wk

VA for Rachelle : 5 hrs/wk

Ride the bus : 15 hrs/wk

Self-Care: 2-4 hrs/wk

Students Leadership: (PTK, Panel discussion board, Art Auction committee, SPOT committee, Literary Magazine Committee) 2-4 hrs/wk

That equals 84-ish hours a week.

Then…

Friends, Sleep, food, bathing, laundry…If I have time I fit those in.  I also like to read magazines and watching 30 Rock. 

My head is spinning.  But this is how I fix it.

I write, do yoga, breathe, lay very still, eyes closed and breathe in and out. If I do these things everything in the first list is much easier and I am nicer and coherent and not having emotional breakdowns. 

It won’t always be like this, I just need to breathe. 

Magpie Girl on Overcoming Resistance in Your Art.

I'm friends with this very creative soul.  Her name is Rachelle and she is known to us as Magpie Girl.  Over at her blog she coaches us on whimsy, maintaining art through chronic illness and finding spirituality that fits.  She's pretty great at it.  This month is her birthday and as a present to herself she set the ambition goal to tell 30 Stories in 30 Days (a la Ira Glass).  She decide to let fellow bloggers ask her questions and she answers them on their blog. (She has a few spots left if you're interested!)

And so on my blog, the thing which most publicly depicts my resistance, she's going to tell us how she meets resistance head on and give us some advise on how to overcome it. 

Without further adieu, I present Rachelle...

Q: How do you overcome resistance in your art?

Ironically, I’ve been staring at this blank page for two hours now. I checked Twitter. I renewed my driver’s license. Paid a few bills. But have I written this post? No. No I have not.

Resistance is the artist greatest enemy. Full stop. And it comes from within.

Yeah, it bites.

Here are some tips and techniques for dealing with resistance:

Set Yourself Up
The number-one thing I do to break through resistance is to set myself forced deadlines. My son-adopted-by-affection is a big fan of self-directed education. He was unschooled in high school and spent his first year post-graduation self-educating. That works for some people. But others, like ..ehm...me…need a deadline if anything is ever going to get done. So set yourself a deadline, and make sure others know about it. Sell seats in a class before all the materials are done. Set a hard date that the next project will be available by. Tell someone you are going to write 30Stories in 30Days. Jolie Guillebeau promised 100 Paintings in 100 Days. Julie Powell pledged to cook through Julia Child’s entire French cookbook in a year. Sure, it would be nice if you were more mature and could get it done without someone breathing down your neck. But if deadlines are your thing, you might as well roll with it. Why fight functionality?

Know Your Cycle
At what point in your creative cycles is resistance most likely to strike? Make a note of it. You may not know how to keep resistance from striking. But if you know when it’s most likely to occur, then you can tell yourself “this too shall pass.” Think of it like your period. Sure you feel little nuts for a few days. But you level out eventually. If you aren’t aware of the stages of the creative cycle, or where yours gets all resistance-y, this might help.

Set the Timer
Get a kitchen timer and just start working. Put paint on the canvas, write words on a page. It doesn’t have to be a part of your finished product. You just need to get started. I usually set mine for 20 minutes. In 10 minutes I might not be in the groove. But if I set it for 20 and just start working, by the time the bell sounds I’m usually on a roll and don’t want to quit.

Personalize Your Gremlins
Resistance is definitely a gremlin. You might as well name it. (Mine is called Pinkerton.) When resistance raises its annoying little head, follow these tips. Pinkerton would also like to give you this. (He’s being a very good boy now.)

Become Pavlov’s Dog
I said this before about getting through administrative tasks, and it also applies to breaking through resistance around making your art. This technique works regardless of your art form. It involves picking a favorite “working song” or set of songs and playing it every time you sit down to work. Eventually you pattern your brain to twig into working as soon as you hear the familiar refrains. I still use a disc of trip hop that a friend made me eight years ago. When resistance is at its strongest, I break out those tunes and the muscle memory of typing takes over.

Show up at the Page
Any number of writers will tell you that the key to their success was to show up consistently to the page (or the easel, or the blow torch…you get the idea.) Most of them advocate for showing up at the same time every day. That’s nice if you are a full time artist. But for the rest of us, it’s more catch when catch can. If you can pick just one day/time of the week that is your time to make art, and hit it every week for 10 weeks, you will have gone a long way to establishing a working ritual for yourself. When you pick your time slot, keep functionality in mind. It would be lovely if you could write every morning at 5am, but will that work for you? I spent a lot of time feeling wimpy for the fact that I cannot write before noon. Finally I stopped resisting, planned my day around the fact that I would get the bulk of my work done between 12-3, and went with it. What’s your most functional time? Save some of it for your art if you can.

Read This Book
If you do nothing else for your art, read this: The War of Art by Steve Pressfield. Ignore the unrelentingly male warmonger-y title and just buy it. You art is worth fighting for.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

P.s. After two hours of resistance to this post, I wrote the whole thing in three songs. You can do it. Be a resistance fighter.

More on Resistance from Magpie Girl:
Writing and Resistance
Mantras for Writers

Rachelle Mee-Chapman, specializes in customized soulcare for spiritual misfits. She works with clients at Magpie Girl to help them find a spirituality that fits; and hosts Flock, an online soulcare community. You can learn more about her creative approach in her free ecourse, Magpie Speak: a new vocabulary for soulcare.  
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The Journey is Life Itself.

"A journey shows us not only the world, but how we fit in it."

I've been thinking a lot about my travels.  How much they changed me.  How much I define myself by the places I've been.  I often say "I'm homesick for the world."  This has been one of those weeks. I am homesick for all the places I've been, but mostly for the places I have not.  I can't help but wonder what part of myself awaits me there?  Who am I in that place.  I think the key to opening that part of me lies in the thing I only experience there.  What is the thing and where is there?