Writing, meditating, not sleeping in
Set the clock ahead tonight. I’m tired of doing that.
Check in
Mission statement
Every few months, I repost the words I opened Becoming with in 2022, when I began this journey.
• Take time, feel gratitude, forgive. • Remember what matters: spirit, authenticity, justice, words. • Wait, and inspiration will come, sooner than you think. • Let your little story come out and play.
Eclipse
This coming Thursday night, March 13-14, there will be a total lunar eclipse. If the sky is clear, it will be visible to everyone in North and South America, about 1 billion people. For more details, check out timeanddate.com.
The moon won’t go completely dark; it will turn deep orange, a phenomenon known as the blood moon.
In mid-February, I took a photo of the full moon known as the Snow Moon. Can you tell which of the orbs is the moon and which are streetlights?
Spring forward. Again.
Daylight saving time begins tomorrow, Sunday, March 9. We all lose an hour of sleep.
Like you, I’m sick of these semiannual changes in my diurnal rhythm. I just want to stick with one time scheme. I don’t care which.
Maybe we could split the difference, move the clock half an hour forward and leave it there forever. Or institute small time zones, each 15 or 30 minutes’ difference.
We can do any of that because, while time is ineluctable, the ways in which we measure it are fungible. I mean, we still use months with 31 days because of the egos of a couple of Roman emperors.
Long before DST, Robert Louis Stevenson had his finger on the pulse of time.
“Bed in Summer” begins this way:
In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.
Stevenson’s country
Most of England is pretty far north, so there are wide divergences between summer and winter daylight. The latitude of London is about 51.30, and Yorkshire is 54. All of Scotland is north of that. Most all of Ireland is north of London, too.
The sun never sets on the British Empire? It hardly rises on much of it for half the year.
In the US, Portland, Ore., is halfway between the equator and the North Pole, at 45.5 latitude. That means the equinox is really equal, with day and night the same length.
Another type of sonnet
I’ve experimented with sonnet forms, including Shakespearean, Spenserian and Italian. A fourth is a curtal sonnet. Curtal, as in curtail. It has just 11 lines instead of the usual 14.
The curtal sonnet was introduced by the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It has a rhyme scheme of ABC ABC DCBD C. The last line is curtailed, just one iamb, like “Praise him” at the end of the Hopkins’ stunning poem “Pied Beauty.”
Here is my effort. There’s an extra iamb in the short line.
Grasping
We think too much, methinks, about our life, Our ken, our kin, what matters, how to get Another book, a friend, a stereo— In doing these we gird ourselves for strife, Push others out; so often we forget They’re in our self-absorbed scenario. Our well-knit life, replete with what we own, Yet frays with our inevitable regret. Those close to us lit in the afterglow Of times now past, of opportunities blown, Our undertow.
Other curtals
A curtal or curtle ax is a cutlass, a short curving sword with a basket-like guard.
Curtal is also a term for a horse with a docked tail. Tails used to be chopped off so they wouldn’t hit the driver of a carriage or sleigh in the face or become entangled in the harness. But the practice keeps the horse from being able to flick away flies. This painful procedure is described in the classic children’s book Black Beauty. I read that more than 60 years ago and never forgot it.
Curtals, the horses, are the source of the “Jingle Bells” line: “Bells on bob-tails ring.”
Ancient instrument
A curtal, also known as a dulcian, is a type of Renaissance bassoon. It’s a double-reed instrument with finger holes spaced like those of a recorder. Dr. Maggie Kilbey’s book on the subject, Curtal, Dulcian, Bajón: A History of the Precursor to the Bassoon, may be found in the library at the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Winter shadows
There’s something poetic about the shadows of the tree and the phone pole cast by southern winter light. I like how the white cars echo the white buildings. And that the sky is such a saturated blue.
Practice
I have always thought, and I still think, that anyone can write. That we all create. Maybe in other forms, like with pencils or paint or pen and ink, with our fingers on the keys of instruments, with percussion, with food, with yarn or thread or fabric . . .
But is creating ever easy? Who am I to be making it sound like a walk in a park when the process, especially at the outset, can seem like a struggle up a steep and rocky mountain?
Maybe you have tried to write and failed. You feel like you just can’t wring juice from that particular turnip.
Mind games
I’m reminded of people say they who can’t meditate. It can be difficult, but there is a way to it. You try and try and try to clear your mind, and then, finally, you discover that the way is not trying, it’s letting go. Not resistance but acceptance.
A relevant quotation from the French thinker Blaise Pascal may be found all over the web, in various translations. I’m surprised I’ve never encountered it before.
[T]out le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.
All the ills of humanity come from a single thing—not knowing how how to sit quietly in a room.
Just sitting quietly. That is all meditation is.
Just moving a pen or a cursor. That is all writing is. Move the stylus, the content follows.
Put that way, they seem so simple, meditation, writing. At the same time, both are difficult and complex. But oh, so worth it.
I let writing be my practice. I do it daily, more than I exercise.
If it is not your exercise already, I hope that some day it will be.
More words
This is how I wrote about writing in one of my morning writing exercises, where the practice is to just keep writing, whatever comes forth:
Just keep writing. Just keep writing. It doesn’t have to have any direction. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just keep writing. Forget 10,000 hours. Maybe it takes 40. Or 2. The penny will drop, the Universe will open. You will find things to write about.
Are they worthwhile? This is a useless question. They are of you. Your words. Your thoughts, your emotions.
Create! Create! Create! It is why we are here.
Challenging day
What will you bring me, dew-stained and fresh? Reasons for courage, reasons for joy? Running in the old ruts or carving new ground, Jumping in eagerness or just letting go? I know I’ve wasted plenty of days Fruitless endeavors, unworthy books, Walking to nowhere—well, that has its merits And sitting, just sitting brings insight and peace. As I do most days, take it moment by moment, Not planning anything, letting it flow. I know there’ll be writing, maybe some music. Sitting and reading and dreaming—oh, what Is for dinner? I have to go shopping! Living and being take over my life. Here is the challenge, then: keep my life simple, But don’t smooth the bumps. They’re what keep me awake.
Hat story
On Woodstock Boulevard in Southeast Portland, a man came up to me, declaring, “That’s a Hat People hat!” I was wearing the billed cap I wrote about two weeks ago. This man was Jacob Young, son of the founders, Carol and Jim. He lives in Portland while his parents, and sister, Rose, hold down the business in Talent, Ore. Find them at hatpeople.com or newsboycap.com.
Jacob sells the hats at the Vancouver farmers market and the Portland Saturday Market.
What were my chances of running into one of the four people behind my hat? And so far afield of Talent, which is in the southern part of the state. The Universe is golden.
Check out
Wings
The wings on the fattest pigeon I’ve ever seen, and rainbow wings found in an alley in Southeast Portland’s Ladd’s Addition.
Feeling
Emotions on your sleeve, Don’t let your face betray you. Lock them in, tender to the core. Touch the live wire, the sensitive tooth, Cuts and burns, wounds and bruises, Little hurts, tears in your heart. Tears in your eyes, too, and tares in the meadow. All things unwanted, good riddance to them. Lift up your heart now, let sorrow become you.
I think so
I think something. My pulse demands That my brain get to work Tilling the loam of the plains of my being Under a sky with ridiculous pink clouds.
About paid subscriptions
We’re all stretched thin. I have paid subscriptions to many Substacks, but there are others I can’t afford to support—not yet. So I appreciate all the more that my paid subscribers have chosen me.
I won’t try to guilt you by noting how many hours a week I spend on crafting these missives, because 1. I like doing it and 2. I don’t actually know.
Still, I have expenses. Paperclips, printer paper, lightbulbs, typewriter ribbons, darkroom chemicals. And coffee. I drink a lot of coffeehouse coffee while working on each week’s posting.
Over the years, I’ve kept track of the relative cost of a Starbucks latte and a glass of McMenamin’s ale, and always, the Starbucks drink is a little more expensive.
I’m keto, so I don’t drink beer. That leaves me with hefty coffee tabs. On PayPal, you can tip me in $5 increments. That’s less than most coffee drinks cost these days.
I just drank a breve (half-and-half latte) with a chaga mushroom boost at Papaccino’s. The 12-ounce version set me back $6.25, before the tip. I’m going to go back to drinking plain black coffee, but at $3.50 to $4 a cup, even that adds up.
As for you, Dear Reader, please keep enjoying Becoming. Whether you pay me or not. I value your presence more than your cash.
"Our undertow" is such a perfect description. I can feel the water rushing back out to sea.
This was wonderful, Fran, what a treasure of delights, your poetry, your musings on writing (and your encouragement to all of us to create! Create! Create!). And I love the hat!