Everyday Boy

For The Writers

Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. - Robert Haas, American poet (1941- )

"The work of writing can be for me, or very close to, the simple job of being: by creative reflection and awareness to help life itslef live in me, to give its esse an existant, or to find place, rather, in esse by action, intelligence and love. For to write is love: it is to inquire and to praise, or to confess, or to appeal. This testimony of love remains necessary. Not to reassure myself that I am ("I write therefore I am"), but simply to pay my debt to life, to the world, to other men. To speak out with an open heart and say what seems to me to have meaning. The bad writing I have done has all been authoritarian, the decleration of musts, and the announcement of punishments. Bad because it implies a lack of love, good insofar as there may yet have been some love in it. The best stuff has been more straight confession and witness." - Thomas Merton, April 14, 1966. Learning To Love: The Journals of Thomas Merton Volume Six 1966-1967

Back To Writing

So, I haven't posted anything here for a long time. Not for lack of desire, but rather in want of proper energy, space and time to write something worthwhile.  Or so I like to think.  I'm sure it's also a result of perfectionism and procrastination shining through, and conflicted feelings over what and how much I want to share on this blog.  A part of me wants to write about everything, while another part of me says that is not possible.  So I am marching up the middle again, hoping to practice a bit of writing on here everyday.  I'll also be going back and posting older entries as well if you ever want to check the December and January archives.

I've had some encouragements along the way. I've been reading a little book by Sark this past month that suggests a nice healthy balance of confronting your procrastination, while allowing yourself some good nap time.  And I was helped by Annie Dillard's words in The Writing Life, where she addresses the writer's struggle to record a few worthwhile lines of words everyday:

To comfort friends discouraged by their writing pace, you could offer them this: It takes years to write a book - between two and ten years.  Less is so rare as to be statistically insignificant.  One American writer has written a dozen major books over six decades.  He wrote one of those books, a perfect novel, in three months. He speaks of it, still, with awe, almost whispering.  Who wants to offend the spirit that hands out such books?
     Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks; he claimed he knocked it off in his spare time from a twelve-hour-a-day job performing manual labor.  There are other examples from other continents and centuries, just as albinos, assassins, saints, big people, and little people show up from time to time in large populations.  Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion people, perhaps twenty people can write a serious book in a year...
     The long poem, John Berryman said, takes between five and ten years.  Thomas Mann was a prodigy of production.  Working full time, he wrote a page a day.  That is 365 pages a year, for he did write every day - a good sized book a year.  At a page a day, he was one of the most prolific literary writers who ever lived.  Flaubert wrote steadily, with only the usual, appalling strains.  For twenty-five years he finished a big book every five to seven years.  If a full-time writer averages a book every five years, that makes seventy three usable pages a year, of a usable fifth of a page a day. The years that biographers and other nonfiction writers spend amassing and mastering materials match the years novelists and short story writers spend fabricating solid worlds that answer to immaterial truths.  On plenty of days the writer can write three or four pages, and on plenty of other days he concludes he must throw them away.  These truths soothe the anguished.

I love how Dillard crunches the numbers.  Reading this actually puts me at ease, knowing work is eating up a chunk of my energy, and to write a few worthwhile words everyday really is possible and enough. I have been working on some poetry.  A collection has begun to form in my mind and on the page.  I hope it to be a two-part collection; the first part on loss and death, and the second full of found poems.  Like Dillard says though, it is a slow process, of which I am only beginning to appreciate.  It's something like silent prayer or mediation. Twenty minutes out of the whole day I know is possible and worthwhile.  A fifth of a page of worthwhile writing is within reach.  I am slowly building some sort of scaffolding to my days; setting aside times to write and times to pray.

Coffee Shop Ramblings

Sometimes it seems as if things like writing a group of songs or getting groceries, are dealt with more or less on a day-to-day basis, as they come up, each reacted to only at the time as they demand to be, and that there is no plan or direction or overall consideration of where things are leading. But of course, that's not true - there are little decisions made every minute, and the cumulative effect is to define what later appears to be a conscious plan, with an emotional center and compass.

David Byrne, musician (1952-  )
From an e-mail I received from a friend.

Writing is staring at a blank piece of paper
until your forehead bleeds

Douglas Adams, author (1952-2001)

I am one of those folks who carries around a moleskin journal, or ones of similar size.  They are my garbage dumps of grocery lists, my talismans for thoughts scribbled in dark theaters, bits and pieces of cloth that are somehow woven into this tapestry I call my life.  I was at a funky local coffee shop last week trying to de-crypt the hieroglyphic-like scratches in my journal, and try and find some sort of foothold, space and a freedom to write again.  I have felt overfull, like an overcrowded party where you can't move or think because the music is too loud and you can't even hear yourself speak.  But I also sense a possible balance that Benedictine spirituality proposes, of work, leisure, study, prayer, rest.  A holy balance.  A sensible, life-giving balance.  A rhythm where all these notes are played in harmony.

I saw my spiritual director again the other day.  It had been awhile since I last saw him.  It was good to see him, and sit in silence with him. One of my co-workers is apprehensive about Catholic traditions, wondering why Catholics confess to priests and pray to Mary, but I've come to see the value of seeing a spiritual director, of confessing your sins to another human being, and looking to the saints for guidance. I must confess that I'm missing the mark, and ask for help in seeing where and how God is acting in my life -  to in essence, be able to begin moving with God again.

The small act of sitting in silence with another person spoke volumes to me that day.  I think I've been physically, emotionally, and mentally spent, but I have not allowed myself to truly sit and rest. I hope to find that place of silence again, where I can slow down and focus on my breath, on God's breath in me.  I'm thinking of finding a quiet place when I go home from work in the mornings.

In the coffee shop this past week, I found some peace.  Even with the inquisitiveness of children's voices filling the air, change jingling, chairs skidding, cutlery clattering, doors slamming, jackets rustling, and radio speakers singing.  I found some peace staring out the front picture window at the busy the street before me.   White Christmas lights reflected in the store-front windows and the shiny cars parked along the street.  A child in blue pajamas played airplane along the sidewalk, with his arms stretched out like a T, her mother smiling, lauging and mimicking behind.  It's always good to sit back and watch the world pass by over a cup of something hot, and be reminded that the world still spins when you are quiet and still.

Why Blog?

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

I thought I'd respond to Heather's comment the other day: ...curious ...about this whole notion of the blog.  Do you connect with people through it?  Is it a vehicle for relationship?  Or is the self-imposed audience to keep yourself accountable even in the privacy of journalling?  Or is it a way to make that privacy less lonely?

It's good to go over again, why exactly I write here.  In a general way it is a way of recording those tenses of light which I am privy to in my part of the world.  It is a way of recognizing some of life lived and in that small way being grateful for all that I come across.  It is a way for me to update faraway friends and family with some of the everyday things that I miss sharing with them all (you who lurk about here for updates on me every now and then).  In the beginning though, this was a way for me to explore what living a contemplative life meant for me in my context, and in the end is a way for me, as it has always been for awhile,to grasp life at it's depth.

And while it's not the main reason why I write here, it's also been good to connect with other folks through this blog who I wouldn't have otherwise connected with.  All in all I'd say it's a tool to not necessarily seek or replace relationships, but help sustain them, and while it helps knowing I'm writing to friends and family it is still quite an inward and private task.  I guess it is strange to publish such private thoughts, but while these words are thoughts very close to me, they still don't reveal all of me - I still choose to edit and hide much, as everyone is apt to do.

One Time, One Space

It has been very difficult being disciplined enough and motivated enough to wake up in the morning early enough to say community prayer, let alone find time to sit and seek God alone. It has also been difficult to sit and write - not because I don't have time, but because I tend to wast time on other more trivial things.  Joan Chittister writes the following, in The Rule of Benedict: Insights For The Ages:

Richard Sullivan, a professor of creative writing at Notre Dame University in the 60's and a writer himself, taught his classes that the two most important physical dimensions of the writing profession were time and space.  "Write every single day at the same time and in the very same place," he said.  "Whether you have anything to say or not, go there and sit and do nothing, if necessary, until the very act of sitting there at your writer's time in your writer's place releases the writing energy in you and begins to affect you automatically."  Teachers of yoga, too, prescribe a set of basic postures and places to dispose the soul to the transcendent.  Teachers of meditation prescribe times and places and mantras, a type of personal chant, to center the soul.  In every tradition, in other words, we are taught that it is not a matter of separating the sacred and the secular.  It is a matter of staying conscious of the fact that the sacred is in the secular.  There is, in other words, such a thing as a spiritual well where simply being in that place can tap open that special part of our souls and enable us to touch the sacred in the secular.

... Have a place where you can go in order to be about nothing but the business of being in the presence of God so that every other space in your life can become more conscious of that presence as well... be there in a special way - with quiet and with awareness, not laughing or talking or lounging or distracting but alert and immersed and enshrouded in the arms of God... Benedictine spirituality says also that to know God in time and space we must regularly seek to find God in one time and space that enables us to recognize God more easily in every other one. - August 3rd

Days As A Poet

I want days as a Poet. Not the workaday life of the prose-writer. I am still on the longbook job. The workhorse day is never over. You can make yourself write prose into the evening, and on into the night, Rise before dawn to elude the people you live with. Think, think, think, plot, plot, write, write, write. Faithfully go at it. Apply yourself to a question, explain things, follow the characters wherever they go. Labor away, and there will be yield - the longbook.

The Poet's day will be moment upon moment of gladsomeness. Poets do whatever they like. They take off whenever they please - to the garden or the shops or the park for strolling or rollerblading. They dine with friends. They go dancing. They go to the library, and read a book that has nothing to do with research. They nap in the hammock, cook, have tea and cookies, invite people over, visit them, pick up the ringing telephone, play music, watch T.V., do nothing, do nothing but breathe. The Muse will find you, and hand over poems. The writing down will be short, and the day long, hardly any of it spent actually writing. The poem comes unworked for. You just pick up the gold fountain pen or the glass pen with the spiral nib, dip it in ink, touch the find linen laid paper, and out flows the poem. - Maxine Hong Kingston

I've been in a bit of hibernation this past month.  I've found it difficult to invest myself in building up another community in another city, but I'm slowly coming out of my shell again.  It's been a lot of cooking and watching television for me the past couple of weeks.  I've also done a lot of card writing, and reflection over the past year.  I finally completed a small year in review for 2004.  If you want the CD to accompany it, just e-mail me at ddallong@hotmail.com.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do in the weeks and months ahead - whether or not to recommit with my volunteer work, go back to school, perhaps apply for a staff position, or explore other options.  There are a lot of questions for me still lingering, but the path is becoming a bit clearer as I go along.

I do hope to get out a bit more and explore the greater Vancouver area.  I've been here two months and I feel like I don't even know my neighborhood too much.  I'm thinking it's time to start running - again.  I'm going to try and get out of the city on the weekends and do some trail running in the woods.

I continue to enjoy good food.  Last Saturday the shelter had a Summer in January staff party at the Vancouver Lawn Tennis & Badminton Club.  It was a fun night where folks dressed up in Hawaiian shirts and their summer's best, and we sat down for cocktails and a formal dinner.  There was an interesting carrot and apricot soup, chicken or salmon in a pineapple sauce, and apple pie for dessert.  They also had a raffle draw - Starbucks cards, movie passes, cash and gift certificates - and then a dance afterwards.  It was an enjoyable evening of food, drink and laughter.  Then this past Monday, Chris, Josh and I found a funky Cuban restaurant called Havana, where they let customers carve their names into the wallpaper.  We all sampled a seafood dish: jambalaya, a seafood stir-fry and a seafood bake.  All very tasty!

All in all, work has been busy, challenging, draining, exciting, and fulfilling... still lot's to learn - especially how to keep a healthy balance between work and play.  As for the days of a poet - I'm still trying to find my Muse.

Poetry

I am trying to write poetry again. New York and it's people are beginning to inspire me. There's a link at the very bottom of the right hand column to my poetry blog. I just posted a found poem I've been struggling to write for some time now, culled from one of thousands of letters written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo. Be sure to visit the poetry blog, as I plan on posting a new poem every week.

Why Write?

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to give artistic impression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories.

Henri Nouwen, Bread For The Journey (April 27)

In two months, on St. Patrick's Day of all days, I will hopefully be in New York City to begin a thirteen month full-time volunteer commitment with a youth shelter called Covenant House.  I will spend three weeks in New York for an introduction to the volunteer community, and then twelve months in Toronto, where I have committed myself to regular prayer, community, and service.  I am excited about this opportunity as it falls in line with many of the values and passions I have concerning my own spirituality.

In the mean time, I began bike couriering again two weeks ago, and have begun to prepare myself for this year long commitment.  I created this journal both in response to friends attempting to more intentionally explore the contemplative life, and to an inner prompting I've had for awhile now - to better grasp life at its depth through daily reflective writing.  Also, being a better writer than conversationalist, I hope this will be a place where I can share my understandings and struggles to embody the contemplative life in the everyday, and in turn listen to what others are learning and struggling with in their lives as well.