I've never been very good at letting moments go. Not skyscapes. Not heartaches. Not eighth-grade talent shows or that moment at graduation when the caps are frisbeed to the sky and the dividing line has been drawn between the future and the past.
So that when I taught young writers for seven consecutive summers, I was, always, in my mind, with those young writers—traveling with them back and forth, trying to see past their page, thinking myself into their process and back out of it again—for their sake, in both directions. And when, today, I was joined on the second floor of a favorite local coffee shop by nine young women, I knew I'd go home with an ache in my heart—they'll all grow up; I'll never know where their lives now will take them.
Their talent runs deep, as does their capacity for thoughtful mutual critique. They listened—they heard—the fragments that I read out loud, some even asking later for titles so that they might read the wholes. There were among them the philosophical and poetical, the one who could write through time and the one who embraced the one moment, the one with a talent for original saturation, the one who knew how to suggest the possibilities of a character's life within the stretch of a single sentence. There was joy as we walked the streets with our cameras in hand. There was compassion for the child we found sitting near a grate, waiting for her mother to come to—well, what, we wondered: to rescue her?
Remain who you are, I urged them, at the session's end. Keep living: whole. And then I read them "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, a poem every true heart must know.
The closing lines:
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
It was a movie weekend—"Slumdog Millionaire" at ten on Friday night, "Frost/Nixon" at 4:15 Sunday, "Mongol," courtesy of Netflix, in between, late Saturday afternoon. And then the Oscars, a tradition strong as Christmas here—a semi-glamorous meal delivered picnic style while the "barely mint" dresses float by. The Oscars always make me cry. Call me a sentimental fool (you won't be the first), but I like seeing dreams fulfilled. I like the idea that it's possible.
In between, I was walking about my humble abode feeling knocked-down grateful for all the book recommendations that came my way via Looking for Book Love, for all the passion that is out there, still, for stories that cling to the page. While I considered the titles that came in, I read essays on writing and craft—re-read them, I should say, in preparation for Tuesday, when I'll spend a chunk of the day in a coffee shop with aspiring young writers. Sven Birkerts, Natalia Ginzburg, Mary Oliver, Jack Gilbert, Gerald Stern, Stanley Kunitz, Forrest Gander, and of course Pablo Neruda will keep me and the girls company throughout a day that will also be spent collecting and sorting the details we hunt down with our cameras.
We'll yield to six exercises, which I've named the following way. I plan to write right alongside the girls, for I am not the sort of writer who believes she definitively knows. I'm the sort who keeps trying to find out. Who learns as she teaches, and as she goes.
The class in brief (should you wish to write along...):
Leveraging Involuntary Memory
The Perceiving I
The Hunt for Character
The Fair Release of Story
The Act of Autobiography
Vulnerable Fictions
Friday, November 28, has been declared by StoryCorps a National Day of Listening.
We are writers. We collect stories. Talk to someone who needs to tell his or her story.
We know how to share. We know where to share. Not everyone is that lucky.
Open a vein and see what comes out.
There's a DO IT YOURSELF guide here to help you get started.
I hope you have someone to talk to today. I hope you have someone who will listen to you today. I like being alone. I do not like being lonely.
A thought: if you could go back in time and talk to someone you've lost, who would that be? What would you ask now? What words have been forever unsaid?
What I love most about sharing my life here and with writer friends in e-mail is learning from them, talking to them, hearing from them. Your words have given my life more depth and meaning than you could ever know.
And for that I want to thank you.
Thank you for opening your veins and sharing your stories with me. {}
There are days when I rise from my desk desolate.
There are days when the field water and the slender grasses
and the wild hawks
have it all over the rest of us
whether or not they make clear sense, ride the beautiful
long spine of grammar, whether or not they rhyme.
--Mary Oliver, GRATITUDE, from WEST WIND: POEMS AND PROSE POEMS
One more thing: Here is my musical message of gratitude to you.
Please. Listen. "Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force."
"You've been so kind and generous..." --Natalie Merchant
Behind the music, Behind the scenes: This song always makes me think of my friends Sue and Muriel and our long drive from NY to Ohio to attend a writer's conference; did you ever laugh for 15 hours in a row? We did and we sang this song many, many times over...
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That's a wonderful Mary Oliver quote you've given us, Sara. Here's another of hers that has always resonated with me:
"Poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry."
Pat
Love this one!! Thanks so much.
Oooh, thanks, Pat. That is lovely. Fire, rope, bread. Yes. All so palpable and real.
I love how specific Mary Oliver is: this is for me that she has written...
I needed this today. Thank you.
Whoa. Empowering.