Reading and Writing: The Feast of Life

Childe Hassam Still Life, Fruits 1904

To say that there has been a profound change in my life, after a few years of struggle and breaks with my past that did not have to happen, is an understatement. I always try to focus on the best things that come of change. I don’t have to try this time. Returning to Zen practice, entering a Zen community, and focusing on what is truly and simply important in living, has quickly changed my priorities. And my outlook. And purpose. As I began writing again, I realized that some of the plans I had made for writing no longer had any meaning in this new life. And I feel the responsible thing is to lay them down. I have had the problem of taking up projects that I shouldn’t have started, before. I think many of us do. But this time, I am carefully weighing what is most important? What should I bring to the table of the feast of life?

The best thing any of us can do. Bring the experiences I have grown in my own garden.

I started a new piece of fiction. But that is not how I live. My reality seems fictional to some people, at times. But what I know best is what I have experienced, observed, and remember. I don’t have enough talent to make fictional characters real. To think all their thoughts out for them. I admire those writers who can do that. But I accept now that I am not one of them.

The one affectation I have is to use words in unusual ways. Which is why I am a poet. Sometimes, even when writing prose. I have played with redirecting words and vocables to new uses as long as I can remember. That shows in my writing, and in my improvised freesong. I have had complaints from people over the years that I make up words. Of course I do! How do you think all languages grow and change? How do you think any human skill grows? We invent new tools and uses for expressing ourselves, our thoughts, and our needs.

I want to concentrate my inventions on closer to true things. I think absolute truth is forever elusive. But if we keep our perceptions focused on what we experience, and are thoughtful about what we get from those experiences, what we create will resonate with those who need what we make, the most.

What do we do to bring our dishes to the right tables? Pay attention to who reads. What do we do once we have laid our dishes down? Go back and make some more. Practice thoughtful work. Never worry about who reads what. Just keep writing and putting the writing out there. Learn to be clear and interesting in your choice of words. And read what others have made. This is what makes us better writers and readers.

The more we react to what we read, the more we learn how to refine our own writing. Substitute the terms of creativity appropriate for whatever we do in life. We are always both the makers and the consumers of what is created.

What is it we really want to experience, and for others to experience of our own making? I always think of the explanation James Mason used when explaining supreme satisfaction to Judy Garland in their film A Star Is Born:

·         Norman Maine : Do you ever go fishing?

[Esther looks confused] 

Norman Maine : Well, do you like prizefi--have you ever watched a great fighter?

Esther Blodgett : I-I uh--

Norman Maine : I'm trying to tell you how you sing.

Esther Blodgett : Do you mean like a prizefighter or a fish?

Norman Maine : Look...em--

[leads her into a kitchen] 

Norman Maine : There are certain pleasures that you get--

[realizes that the sound of clanging dishes is intolerable and they depart for the outside] 

Norman Maine : There are certain pleasures you get, little-little jabs of pleasure when a swordfish takes a hook, or-or when you see a great fighter get in right for the kill, see?

[Esther still looks confused] 

Norman Maine : You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?

Esther Blodgett : No, not yet. Why don't you try bullfights?

They struggled with the right idea, but still made the point brilliantly. Me? I call that satisfaction the ping. The moment you know you have arrived in the presence of a really good experience. Something we all yearn for.

My life is getting short now. I want to concentrate on more pings. And just let go and move on if they are not happening. It’s all right to do that. It helps us learn what we really want.

So. I am editing my work tonight. Removing things that I don’t want to lay out on the table anymore, to give room for better dishes, both mine, and from others.

The feast of life is what we make of it and eat of it.

I don’t know about you, but I am very hungry.