What the Stones Remember July 28, 2008
Posted by openpalm in change, chrysallis, memoir, patrick lane, recovery.add a comment
thanks thanks to Fiona for recommending What the Stones Remember, by Patrick Lane. This is a beautiful, surprising book. Published by Trumpeter Books, an imprint of Shambhala Publications, it’s a memoir full of noticing and joyful, gentle, embarrassed, painful, poignant self-discovery.
Lane mixes observations made while gardening, with memories from his 62 years, with speculations about what might be available and true for him now, several months into sobriety.
The writing is remarkable. I read the first few pages and thought I wouldn’t be able to stay satisfied with this level of detail. I don’t use bookmarks (some perverseness I’m sure, akin to wearing a hair shirt) so I always have to guess, read a passage, adjust, read a passage. In a story with a clear plot this works easily. I didn’t think it would work here. To my amazement, and now filed into my knowledge about writing that works, I find that his descriptions – because they are so careful — have all the character of, well, characters. I recognize each passage even weeks after reading it.
Here’s a taste,
The seedpods of the foxglove have been growing, each in succession, as flowers have bloomed one after another up the long stalk. The lowest seedpod is already mature. A gentle touch ticks the mariachi sound of tiny seeds rattling inside. When the pod splits, the seeds fall into the warm crevices of earth. It is the same for all the flowers of spring now that summer is here. The day lilies blossom and fade in their twenty-four hours of grace, the feverfew sends out its last flare in a thousand white blossomes, the cosmos swings its many shades of cream through deep magenta, and pillars of yellow ligularia blossom in the modest dark of the shade garden.
I begin to understand that when things fall apart it doesn’t mean they’re broken, it means they are forming themselves into other things. The intense confusion of the past eight months has left me feeling nothing would ever be the same again and, of course, why should it be? Things change and I am changed…
Careful observation, exact not fancy words, honesty, time to think deeply. And something here that I’ll call cadence. The rhythm of his sentences somehow mirror his mood, and also the importance not of the author, but of his subject.
See Love, for Patrick’s wonderful contribution on the topic…
hello moon May 27, 2008
Posted by openpalm in God, chrysallis, comforts, miracles, ordinary, simplejoys.3 comments
Walker, Texas Ranger is big in our house (not just 1 but 2 reruns mon-friday on Hallmark channel.) Lots of round-house karate kicks, and a sound track during fights that i’m sure they just play over and over for the many scenes with flying punches, kicks and resulting oofs. I’ve been trying to figure out who is doing what on the sound track to create the perception of the sound of a foot actually making a swooshing noise as it leaves the ground, kicks higher than a shoulder, turns 360 degrees before landing on someone’s chin. Oh, and no blood. Power and release and body body body all by the white hatted good guys getting it out on the black hatted bad guys. What could possibly beat that?
All of that, by the way, was a digression. On a recent episode, Walker’s Indian mentor (walker’s father was a full blooded Indian, and Walker was raised on a rez after his parents are killed) remonstrates Walker because he has walked out of his house and forgotten to “greet the sun.” Walker, after a tiny push back, says “hello sun” to the sky.
I realize that I do this twice daily, most days. In the morning it sounds like “hello, house” but the words pass my lips as I exit the mini-tunnel of my bedroom and enter the two-story room with windows around the top perimeter and see the sky — mostly blue, often with some sunlight event, be it the time just before dawn (weekdays) or the glorious spill of sunlight (weekends.) “hello, house” is really “hello, sun, and I thank you.”
Most nights we can also watch the moon on its trajectory from one end of the house to the other…it passes five windows as it moves from east to west…as it passes from dark to full and back again. “hello moon.”
The moon is female. I don’t know why. She is sweet and quiet and soothes me when the dark might otherwise be frightening. She is cool but never cold. She is the light in the window reminding me that wherever i might be in the world, I am always home in the intimate night on this earthly planet with the deep deep deep universe spread above me. I like the night. Especially now when during the day there is way too much to do, work and home with lots of critters and number one son needing things. In the night, it’s just me, and the moon, and a few moments of silent companionship
hello, to each of you who visit here. my other moons. companions listening quietly wherever you are, and shining your lights in the window.
Life line January 19, 2007
Posted by openpalm in chrysallis, hope, poetry, visions.2 comments
Lifeline
room completely black
except
for a thin line at floor height.
brilliant golden light
streams, widens.
a door?
opening?
Next Day, This Day January 12, 2007
Posted by openpalm in chrysallis, poetry.add a comment
I almost titled this post, “Day 2.” But I’m not sure what I would be counting. Days running away from shock? Or days moving into a new future?
The January cold clean washing clear dry air carries me today.
It’s not day 2 or next day. It’s today.
Day 1 January 11, 2007
Posted by openpalm in chrysallis, handholds.add a comment
In a period of great pain and transition, I look for handholds for mind and heart.
This quotation moved me. I didn’t want to lose it. I started this blog.
How we spend our day is, of course, how we spend our lives.
– Annie Dillard
