Another Season of Seeing
There are some thoughts/quotations that just get more and more true:
“To look at something is such a wonderful thing of which we still know so little.”
That’s Rilke.
And summer was full of looking and seeing and exquisitely ordinary mornings. Wondering what the plot is….
There Are Mornings
by Lisel Mueller
Even now, when the plot
calls for me to turn to stone,
the sun intervenes. Some mornings
in summer, I step outside
and the sky opens
and pours itself into me
as if I were a saint
about to die. But the plot
calls for me to live, be ordinary,
say nothing to anyone.
Inside the house,
the mirrors burn when I pass.
The plot has been all over the place in a certain way. I keep the book White Ink on my desk that contains this quotation:
“At this moment I am in a period of uneasiness because I have to rethink my existence: I have too many demands placed on me and I feel threatened. Really, next year, I am going to try to withdraw a bit but now I am getting into a system of contradictions which is painful for me….”
And that’s Hélène Cixous, who later in the same book says, “No need to hope. On the other hand, one should resist the temptation of weariness and discouragement…”
So yes, no need to hope but on the other hand hope.
And aren’t we always really rethinking our existence? Don’t we all have too many demands? Isn’t there always next year? And the contradictions??? Yes of course they are always at play.
The thing about the plot of an ordinary life is that it’s only revealed slowly and partially even to the one living it!
I sometimes laugh when I think back to my NY post and declaring 2023 to be the year of my ALL. This year, and it’s only September, has already exceeded expectations. I’m looking forward honestly to January when I can write down the plot of this past year, and call forth the next. (Carefully, very carefully….)
But also, don’t worry, it seems with every amazing thing that’s happened, there’s been a balance check. But I still believe in the unsaid, (a post I wrote in 2017), I still believe in the words of Nicole Brossard who says, “You have to be insane to confide the essential to anyone anywhere except in a poem.”
Still, life is wonderful, still life is wonderful……My book on that subject and the art life will be coming out in January, and I remain very proud of it. More on that soon…..
In the meantime, our garden season is coming to a close, the poetry of fall is upon us. I will be spending a week away on a project I will be talking more about when I’m back….(you can tune in on Instagram if you like :) ). Thanks for being here…..
Shawna
