Vicarious Progress?

Question: I know that some people think that avid readers "read their lives away," living life vicariously through the characters in novels instead of experiencing their own lives, however promising or humdrum they may be. I don't agree.

However, I do notice in myself that, when I read books that might help make my life better, let's say a book about a spiritual practice such as meditation or personal reflection, I can easily read and read and keep reading about the spiritual topic, giving mental assent, and I begin to feel as if I'm growing in that area without actually ever practicing the spiritual discipline I'm reading about. Is it, I wonder, a form of spiritual procrastination? Assumed vicarious spiritual growth?

And more importantly, has anybody else noticed this in themselves? Comments, please.

The Urge to Simplify

Stress. Stress. Stress.

I hate stress.

It's weird. I have a great life. I'm healthy. I have a wonderful family. Dear friends. A good job. A nice home.

So why do I feel so stressed?

There are lots of reasons, I guess, but one is simply having too much stuff. Too many clothes. Too many shoes. Too many kitchen gadgets. Too much stuff stuffed in junk drawers. And so on. And so forth. You have to clean stuff. And sort stuff. And choose between stuff.

So, lately I've really had the urge to simplify. A strong urge. I know simplifying reduces stress, but I'm not quite sure how to get from where I am to where I want to be.

I'm on a mission. Any suggestions?

P. S. The only thing that I have a lot of that doesn't stress me out is books--well, I am stressed that I don't have enough time to read all that I want to, but that's another story . . . .

Semester's End

The end of a semester is bittersweet. On one hand, it's great. It's what I've been living for. The planning, and the preparation, and the grading are over. I get a break. No more living by the clock. There's more time for spending with family, recreational reading, and just plain relaxing.

But on the other hand, I get a little sad at the end of a semester. It seems as if I'm just getting to know my students--really know them--and then "boom," it's over, and in a little while I start all over with another group of unfamiliar faces.

I'm Tired

This has been a great year. I finished the degree; I'm back at work. But, boy, am I tired. I thought I'd have some time off between defending and going back to work, but with two new classes to teach this semester, that just didn't happen. And of course the prep from those two new classes has kept me busy, along with all the grading. And NOW I've got two new classes to teach in the Spring semester, so in addition to prepping and grading, I've been trying to do some planning.

So, I'm really looking forward to having some time off next week. I want to get up without an alarm. I want to go through the day without watching the clock. I want to do some recreational reading. I want to watch a good movie or two (NOT New Moon).

Maybe after that I'll be ready for the sprint towards finals.

Poetic Soul

The other evening, my husband and I were sitting out on our patio, enjoying the cool evening breeze and the sunset.

As the sun slowly lowered, dipping behind the oak trees in the distance, the sky lit with colors hard to describe--pearly gold, purplish pink, neon magenta. It was beautiful.

"Look!" I said. "That huge cloud is an avenging angel, his stern, angry face looking over the earth, his wings outspread, on fire with the wrath of God."

Then "Look! Over there is a man in a wide-brimmed hat, smoking a cigarette, his back to the wind. The breeze is blowing the cigarette smoke straight out away from him."

Again "Look! Right in front of us is a horse . . . no, a prancing steed, his head up high and proud, his feet lifted in a high trot."

My husband just looked at me. After a moment he said, "There's a backwards L. With one wing."

Guess who has the poetic soul and who has the practical one?

What I'm Reading Now

"In this eloquent and persuasive book, Neil Postman examines the deep and broad effects of television culture on the manner in which we conduct our public affairs, on how "entertainment values" have corrupted the very way we think. As politics, news, religion, education, and commerce are given expression less and less in the form of printed or spoken words, they are rapidly being reshaped and staged to suit the requirements of television. And because television is a visual medium, whose images are most pleasurably apprehended when they are fast-moving and dynamic, discourse on television takes the form of entertainment. Television has little tolerance for argument, hypothesis, or explanation; it demands performing art.

Mr. Postman argues that public discourse, the advancing of arguments in logical order for the public good-once the hallmark of American culture-is being converted from exposition and explanation to entertainment."

Playing with Point of View

I thought it was really interesting that the first two plays I went to last week both hinged on point of view. Of course, Wicked tells the Wizard of Oz story from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West, and boy do things look different through her eyes. Three Days of Rain starts off with the adult children's view of their parents, and the second act goes back in time, revealing that the parents' actions and motivations were exactly the opposite of how the children had interpreted them. Plays like this remind me to be more careful of how I judge the actions of others. And it makes me wonder how often my own actions and intentions are totally misunderstood.

Me, too!

Passages like this are why I absolutely love Anne Lamott:

“Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die. They are full of all the things that you don’t get in real life—wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. And quality of attention: we may notice amazing details during the course of a day but we rarely let ourselves stop and really pay attention. An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I’m grateful for it the way I’m grateful for the ocean. Aren’t you? I ask.”

I’ve had those same thoughts, I’ve just never said them so beautifully.

Booking It--Too Much Info

Have you ever been put off an author’s books after reading a biography of them? Or the reverse - a biography has made you love an author more?

Interesting question! I don’t think I’ve ever disliked anyone’s work simply because I’ve learned more about them, but the opposite is often true for me. I’ve had my appreciation of beloved novels enhanced by a better knowledge of the author. I’ve liked works and then enjoyed them even more after reading about the author. Occasionally, I’ve even really disliked a work, then after getting to know more about the author’s life, done an about-face and come to appreciate the novel tremendously.

It’s not that I’m engaging in or advocating biographical criticism, but I do think that it helps to know where and when an author lived, the struggles she came up against, the political or social or familial events that were shaping her life experience, or maybe even what the author stated she was trying to do with her work.

What do you think?

Faulty Association

Back in my youth, for some unknown reasons which will not be analyzed here (got any ideas, Mom?), grapefruit became associated with diets and deprivation. So for years, I ignored them when I browsed the local produce section.

But one day, a year-and-a-half or so ago, a large, beautifully shaped grapefruit caught my eye. I picked it up, enjoyed the heavy weight of it in my hand, and decided to buy. The next morning, I cut it in half, admired its firm pinkish-red flesh, and tentatively separated a section to taste. Oh, my.

Now, no breakfast is complete without half a grapefruit. If I don’t get to eat one—because I ran out unawares, because I haven’t gotten to the store, because those at the store didn’t look worth eating—I am not a happy camper.

Weird, huh?

Booking It--Inspiration

“Inspiration” is the theme this week … what is your reading inspired by?

I had to think about this a while. Reading gives me much pleasure. It always has, and I trust that it will for many years to come. But I don’t think that pleasure is what “inspires” me to read.

Deep down, I think I read out of a need to know, to more fully understand, to be a total participant in the human experience. I think that’s why I enjoy different genres, why I read novels and poetry and plays but also memoirs and biographies, books about history and health, psychology and sociology, books of religious contemplation or outright denial. I want to know the world, other cultures, other peoples. What do they believe? What motivates them? Why do they feel as they do? I want to understand history, what it was like to live in other places at other times, to comprehend the contradictions, the pains of the queen, the pleasures of the peasant. I want to understand how we got where we are now, what’s in my food, and how to do better take care of myself. And since I’ll never know it all, I have motivation to keep on reading.

What’s your inspiration?

Gleanings from My Readings

“Consideration & Esteem as surely follow command of Language, as Admiration waits on Beauty.”
---Jane Austen, in Lady Susan

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“History is most responsibly understood as a mosaic of probabilities or as something like a babble of voices from which emerges a fallible consensus of opinion. Narratives give us focused, if varied, points of view, and storytellers elide, forget and filter whatever facts they believe they possess. About the best you can hope for in a movie’s presentation of history is that it is not an overt lie.”
---Philip Martin, columnist for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, in his article “Defiance Is Riveting Drama; Is It History, or Its Shadow?” 1/20/09

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“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape—the loneliness of it, the sad feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.”
---Andrew Wyeth, American artist

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“There is, of course, a cognitive disconnect to reading poetry to an audience numbering in the millions, as Alexander did. Most poets never reach that many people in a lifetime, which may have something to do with the choice to keep her focus simple, her imagery direct. Even so, the crowd began dispersing well before she was finished, as if her words were little more than an afterthought. Partly, that has to do with her placement on the program—after the president; she had the misfortune of following the main event. But even more, it suggests the tangential role of poetry in our national conversation, which is unlikely to change no matter how seriously this president, or any other, takes the written word.”
---David L. Ulin, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, in his article “The Poem That Failed”

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Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem:
“Praise Song for the Day”

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise. All about us is
noise and bramble, thorn and din, each
one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

I know there’s something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

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Happy Reading!

Let the Flailing Begin

If you’ve been reading my “Gleanings from My Readings” posts lately, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve found Anne Lamott to be an especially quotable writer. In her book Plan B: More Thoughts on Faith, she observes, “I know that with writing, you start where you are, and you flail around for a while, and if you keep doing it, every day you get closer to something good.”

Well, I’m ready. I let myself have a couple of weeks off, for several reasons. One is that I haven’t really taken any time off from my studies since I began three years ago. Another is that I wanted to enjoy my family over the holidays. And the final reason is that I just can’t work in fits and spurts. When I write, it becomes my second religion—I have to do it with my whole heart, mind, and soul, and I knew I couldn’t devote that kind of uninterrupted time to my dissertation during the holiday season.

But it’s over now. This is the last lap. I’m ready. Let the flailing begin.

Some Observations on Blogging at Year's End

I started blogging this past July. Although I was a little hesitant to begin, I’ve found that I really enjoy it. I thought that, at year’s end, I’d share a few of my observations about blogging:

1. No skill improves without practice, and writing is no different. Blogging is a good way to regularly exercise my “writing muscles.”

2. Blogging encourages me to be more observant.

3. Knowing that I have a daily post to write makes me more thoughtful—about life, about what I read, about what I think, about what others say—about everything, really. And that’s always a good thing.

4. It’s rewarding to see my words in print, even if it is online.

5. I always wondered how columnists regularly came up with things to write about. Now I know.

6. Writing and reading blogs lets me regularly participate in conversations with people—intelligent people, witty people, thoughtful people, geographically-distant people, something that otherwise would be nearly impossible.

7. Knowing that others are reading my blog is motivating. I never could keep a personal journal going, but blogging has a built-in incentive.

8. My blog is an archive of my daily thoughts, ideas, and observations, something that I find personally valuable.

9. It’s fun.

10. It’s addictive.

Here’s to a great year of blogging in 2009!

Cajoling Myself

No, I’m not writing this post just because I want to use the word “cajoling,” although it is a great word, isn’t it? Say it out loud. See? It even sounds like you’re giving yourself a pep talk, kind of like poking yourself in the ribs. And it has a happy sound. You’re encouraging yourself, not beating yourself up (that would be “manhandling” or “coercing.”)

Okay, enough about words and down to business. I’m actually writing this post because this morning, I realized something about myself. I’m not organized or disciplined or driven to achieve. I simply cajole myself through life.

Today was weightlifting day, something that comes around about three times a week for me. Some days, I really enjoy it. I’m eager to begin, and each lift feels great. My body feels fit and strong. I am joyously alive. I even feel a little righteous. Today was not such a day.

I told myself, “Just do your run, and if you don’t feel like lifting, you don’t have to.” Of course, this is a sneaky move. First of all, it gets me in my exercise clothes and out the door, which is half the battle. Then after my run I’m already sweaty, so I can’t use the excuse that I don’t want to get that way. I told myself, “Well, you might as well go ahead and lift a few weights. If you want to quit after the first set, you can.” Then, of course, it was “Well, just one more set.” Then, “You don’t want to be a quitter, do you?” And finally, “Come on. Just one more set! Think of all those hump-backed little old ladies you see in Walmart who struggle to lift their groceries from the cart to the checkout. You don’t want to end up like that do you?” And before I knew it, I was done.

See, it wasn’t will power. I just cajoled myself through it, a strategy I knew would work because I’d done it before. And not just with workouts.

I got through my undergraduate years this way. I was driving two hours one-way, with three children at home, and when I’d get overwhelmed, I’d tell myself: “You can quit tomorrow, but you’re not going to quit today. All you have to do is what’s required today.” And I didn’t quit. Certainly I’ve gotten through my doctoral program by cajoling myself. “Wow, that’s a really long checklist of really hard requirements. Maybe I can’t do this. Well, I’ll just get through the coursework and worry about the rest later.” When it got time for my comps reading, it was: “Just start the first book. Okay, check. Now the next one . . .” And writing papers? “Okay, just do the research. Now an outline. Just write an introduction . . .” I plan on completing the dissertation using the same method.

Writing teachers always say to stay away from clichés, and I understand why. They are “tired language,” and writers want to be original and striking. But clichés become clichés because they are true to life. “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” “Inch by inch, it’s a cinch. Yard by yard, it’s too hard.”

Works for me.

Misery Loves Company

Last week on one of my posts , Ian, a McCarthy enthusiast who’s pursuing an MA, posted a comment about the newest book on my must-read list: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s on his to-read list, too--and has been since last December--but, as he so eloquently put it, “due to time constraints and life” he hasn’t been able to read it yet.

Ah, Ian, I feel your pain. Sometimes, it feels like I’m so busy reading what I “have” to read and taking care of inconsequential items like buying groceries, doing laundry, and making sure the health department doesn’t condemn my house, that there’s not enough time to read what I “want” to read. And I feel guilty even writing this because I actually do like what I’m studying.

Maybe it’s just that old stubborn childishness surfacing: “Nobody’s gonna tell me what to read!” Maybe it’s laziness—Instead of working, I want to be entertained. Maybe it’s jealousy. When you’re working hard on a degree, it seems like everybody else is getting to read whatever strikes their fancy, while poor-old-me has to keep my nose to the grindstone. Of course, the same thing happens when you’re teaching. You spend all your time reading and preparing for the classes you teach, and recreational reading time is all too short and precious.

Oh well. At least I know I’m not suffering alone.

Just Passin' Thru

One of the greatest simple pleasures of Fall for me is moving through leaves. I know it sounds childish and maybe even silly, but being in the middle of autumn leaves really makes me happy.

Several stretches of the road to our house are tree-lined, and I love it when the wind blows the leaves from the trees as I’m driving through—it’s like speeding through a blizzard of color. Then, the next day, the road is covered with the leaves, and as I drive through them, I look back through the rearview mirror and watch them swirl. I’m kicking up jewel-toned dust.

I also love jogging through blowing leaves. They are above me, below me, around me. I feel like I’m in my own personal kaleidoscope. The other day, I was out for my run and one beautiful, perfect leaf was caught in a breeze, dancing like the feather in Forrest Gump, and I just stopped and watched it until it settled at my feet.

You know it must be really special when a Type A personality stops and admires nature in the middle of her run.

Listen Up!

Does the thought of fighting through crowds at the mall on Black Friday send you into a depression?

The oral-history organization StoryCorps has a relaxing alternative. They’ve declared the Friday after Thanksgiving a National Day of Listening. The purpose of the event is to give family members a reason to sit down and have intimate conversations that can be recorded and preserved as heirlooms. StoryCorps founder Dave Isay explains that “this is the kind of project that can help us through difficult times by remembering what’s really important, and that all of our lives matter.”

Gail Ostrow, a 64-year-old college professor plans to interview her husband. “There are things I want to know about him that don’t come up in conversation,” she explains. After interviewing her mother last year, 8th grader Ally Stein reveals the she got “closer with her. I can tell her things now that I thought I wouldn’t be able to.”

According to StoryCorps, “the experience creates more than a historical record to share with future generations. It can break down barriers and provide an opening for otherwise reserved participants to clearly voice their emotions.”

What a gift—the power of shared narrative. And you don’t have to get up at 4 am to beat the crowds.


Oh, if you do decide to go shopping, here are three gifts to avoid:

--Rehab Barbie
--Vet-me Elmo
--Monopoly: The Bailout Edition

Life on Hold

Everywhere you look nowadays are books and articles encouraging readers to live life to the fullest. We’re instructed to make a “bucket list” and get started crossing the items off. We’re told to live in the moment, to dream big, to celebrate ourselves, to enjoy simple pleasures. There are slogans like “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” and “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” to shake us out of our stupor.

In one article I read, a woman was packing up her mother’s things, getting ready to move her into a nursing home. Inside a bureau, she found the gifts she’d given her mother over the last few years—a beautiful nightgown, a scented candle, luxurious bath towels—still wrapped in tissue paper. “Mom,” she asked in bewilderment, “why didn’t you use the gifts I gave you?”

“I was saving them,” her mother answered.

I thought about that a lot. Saving them for what? For when life’s perfect? For a magical future day that never arrives?

At first, I felt pretty good about myself regarding this issue. I don’t have any items stashed away for later. I burn the candles I buy. We don’t have any towels I’d call “luxurious,” but we do use the ones we have. I do have wedding china on display in the china cabinet, but I get it out for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other important family events.

But then I realized that there is one item that I buy and then invariably put off using—new running shoes. I wait until my current pair’s about worn out, order a new pair, and when they come in, I let them sit in the closet. Sometimes for months. I mean, they’re so clean when they’re new, so shiny and white. So there they sit, and day after day I look at them, until finally I admit that my old shoes are causing my feet or my knees to hurt and realize how stupid it is to have good shoes that I refuse to wear.

Reluctantly, I get them out of the closet and put them on, lace them up, and head out the door. And after a day or two, even sooner if it’s rainy, they don’t look so new anymore. And I survive.

Maybe there’s some deep Freudian thing going on here.

Wish I'd Said That

I have always loved to read because of the sense of discovery—new people, new worlds, new times, new ideas. I also love to read because of the sense of escape. For a little while, I can leave my old familiar world and live in a new, exciting, and very different one—even different ones on different days. But one of the greatest pleasures of reading comes when discovery becomes recognition, when I encounter a passage that so beautifully expresses something I’ve thought or felt, and something deep inside me says, “Yes! That’s it exactly!”

Here’s one such passage from Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith:

“A folksy bluegrass trio began playing, the mandolin offering the quavering melody, then two guitars joined in, and then three voices singing. We turned slowly to look at the musicians. A woman got up from her table and began to dance on the lawn between us and the stage, all by herself, and I thought to myself, I wish I were the kind of person who could dance in public, not caring what everyone thought. And I wanted to be this way so badly that after a minute I just got up, moved closer to the music, toward the one woman dancing, and slowly and very shyly and without enormous visible grace, began to move in time with the music. I figured that once I stepped forward into that spotlight, another would appear somewhere near my feet, and if it didn’t, at least I’d have had the chance to dance.

So I did, dancing with my eyes closed so as not to be distracted. Nietzsche said that he could only believe in a God who would dance, and I feel the same way . . .”

Boy, I wish I’d said that.