Oh Happy Day: Turning Three

I’ve been in a season of busy-ness. I feel it in every way — in my sleepiness and sleeplessness, my stretched schedule, my unkept home, my burgeoning to-do list, my perpetually delayed accomplishments. I always try to maintain gratitude for the wealth of opportunities busy-ness tends to signal and for the chance to help or serve my children in all their interests. But, I’m feeling it. There’s no question that we have a boundary line, a tipping point in the load of busy-ness that, once crossed, begins to hinder everything we do. And, it often seems those things we most enjoy (or most need) take the greatest hit.

I’ve been realizing this week just how much busy-ness robs me of a life aware. The sheer pace of activities numbs my senses toward experiencing each day, each place and each encounter fully. It numbs me to my own thinking and feelings and priorities.

Today marks the third birthday of EyeJunkie. I started it in May 2008 as an outlet–an outlet for creativity and for my centering my own thoughts about life and this world in a consistent stream. I sub-titled it “adventures in paying attention” because I found myself in this similar place. I found myself needing to curb the busy-ness of my own mind and my own schedule so that I could (as Thoreau said) live “deliberately.” So that I might re-claim a life of intention, at the mercy of my own priorities rather than at the mercies of everything else around me. I started EyeJunkie to articulate thoughts. My thoughts. The thoughts that had gotten lost in the din of activities and projects and needs surrounding me. I started EyeJunkie as a starting point. A place to begin and document an effort at paying attention to each day, and thereby elevating that day to the most important among days.

As I look at my stream of posts over the last few months, I see that what I’ve written above is true. One of the things I most enjoy (and most need) has taken a huge hit. And, I’m feeling it. It’s fitting that the anniversary of EyeJunkie’s beginnings falls on a Friday, the day I sometimes call “Oh Happy Day” and devote writing space to articulating gratitude. I am grateful for so many things in this writing experiment. Of course, I’m grateful for anyone who takes their own precious time to lay eyes on it. I’m mindful that this simple choice from a reader is an incredible compliment and gift since I’m assuming the realities of busy-ness aren’t just limited to me. I’m grateful for the experience of entering a non-traditional and growing medium. I’m thankful for the opportunity to experiment and learn in that medium. I’m thankful for the outlet it’s given me to express myself on whatever topics seem to rise to the surface at the moment. But, I think my greatest gratitude for EyeJunkie today is its ability to filter and center my thinking. That’s what I’ve sorely missed over these last few months of inconsistency.

Something about the act of articulating my thoughts into semi-coherent sentences and phrases helps to solidify them in my own mind. Somehow in the body of essays I produce for this space, I find the trends of my own heart. You would think those things would already be apparent to me, but it’s not so. Sometimes the process of understanding and recognizing my own place is so much harder from the inside out. To see it looking back at me in words and statements helps me recognize it more clearly.

Upon turning three, I’m ready for a renewed commitment to the founding theme of EyeJunkie. The adventure of paying close attention. Giving life the attention it so richly deserves. It seems to be a contradiction, but the reality of experience shows that we often have to cut back to experience more. We have to tune out to listen carefully. We have to speak more softly to be heard loud and clear. We have to look past some things to see the subtle blooming of life all around us. And, I want to see the blooms.

I want to get back to that pursuit that has brought me such gratitude and insight so far. I want to see May flowers, as the school rhyme goes. But, more pointedly, I want to see how May flowers. I want to be hard on the trail of that life aware — the one where I actually notice how each day (even each moment) blooms. Be it the sweet-scented blooms of opportunity and joy, or the bitter-sweet flowering of change or struggle, I want to breathe it in. Fully.

And I want to write about it.

[I hope you enjoy this week's destop wallpaper (a little late). Feel free to point-click the desktop version above or grab these for your iphone or ipad.]

Reading Journal: Just Kids

I saw last week that the book Just Kids by Patti Smith won the National Book Award for non-fiction this year, and it made me think about the book again. I enjoyed reading it earlier this year, and have seen a few great interviews with Smith about it as well. It’s been a while since I’ve written about books, so I thought I would share a few thoughts about this one.

Just Kids is a poignant memoir of the love affair and life-long friendship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, two artists who became symbols of the alternative art culture of the early 1970s and whose iconic status in greater pop culture continues today. The staccato prose of the writing took some getting used to, and the rapid pace of Smith’s descriptions of encounters with poets and authors and musicians was at times dizzying. I really enjoy the stream of consciousness style, however, and I suppose her approach to recounting the pair’s activities matched the random nature of the times and the evolution of that particular sub-culture.

I’ll have to admit that there were a lot of names in Just Kids that I didn’t recognize. I’m just barely a child of the 70s and I guess my younger cultural experiences didn’t follow the same circles as those of the Hotel Chelsea scene. There were many names I knew I should recognize and felt a little tuned out because I didn’t — lost my official “artist” badge in a couple of instances, I’m sure. In fact, there were times when I felt I’d fallen into some giant cocktail party game of name-dropping. But, the people who took up the volume of Smith’s remembrance emerged as “characters” I learned in a new way.

I was quite enamored by the story as a whole and particularly by the ebb and flow of the relationship between Smith and Mapplethorpe. It was an interesting study of muse and artist, of friendship, of family created out of common loves and of the weathering of change. And of course, the emergence of both the artists’ “voices” in prose, photography and song is unique and compelling.

The way Smith described the end of Mapplethorpe’s life, her continued protectiveness of him and his vision, and her process of letting him go was very moving for me. It spoke volumes about life lived entwined with another person and the realities of how that type of relationship changes by necessity over time. The poignancy of the last chapters of their relationship and Mapplethorpe’s death perhaps highlight some of the ways I was disappointed with the book. The close of their story made me cry. It moved me. It showed me her grief at losing the person who was so influential in her life. It made me feel her grief over how situations change–both for good and bad. But, in many ways it was the first time I felt I really saw her in the book.

For much of the book, I felt as if Smith was painting a picture for me. Yes, that’s partly what a memoir is, but it seemed she was trying to portray a contrived image of herself. It was clear in much of the book that her goal was to emphasize Mapplethorpe, but her perspective and role in his life would have gained greater credibility from more of that rawness I saw at the end.

For me, she didn’t answer the “oprah question.” You know, the question every onlooker would ask. She didn’t seem to address with any depth her own feelings about the delving of Mapplethorpe into the gay culture he became so synonymous with. They were lovers. And young lovers at that. At a time in their lives when both their artistic visions and their forays into adulthood were very new. That’s a very powerful relationship. The woman who described her own fantasies of being Baudelaire’s muse seemed completely detatched from the fact that her lover was hustling in male prostitution. She seemed almost indifferent to his decision to pursue a homosexual lifestyle. For someone who throughout the rest of the book infused so much meaning into small details and chance encounters, it seemed just a little too cosmopolitan. I was amazed by her acceptance of Mapplethorpe’s choices, and I recognize that acceptance as one thing that made their relationship so enduring and impactful for the two of them. But, I wanted to see her care. I wanted to see her work through the emotions of that change in their relationship. It would have brought a very human perspective to the “starting gun” affect his work continues to have in our culture.

All in all, I really enjoyed Just Kids as a memoir, as a record of a very intriguing time and a very intriguing art “scene.” I just wish that in her zest to show me Mapplethorpe, Smith would have shown me more of herself as well.

Overthinking, Perhaps

I’ve noticed a change in tone recently with many of my essays. There has been a heaviness that perhaps isn’t usually part of what I write. There has been an emphasis on challenges and questioning. Also, “change” and “transition” seem to be repeating themes. I can’t remember when I’ve written about the media or politics. I haven’t devoted much time to being funny (which may have actually always been the case except for in my own mind), and I haven’t even used my children as heart-warming inspiration as often as usual. I realize that it’s the height of overthinking to be so carefully evaluating my own writing bent again. But, that’s not really what this mini-essay is about. Taking note of my own recent themes has made me think about authenticity and my desire to make transparency part of this writing experiment. It’s made me revisit the premise of EyeJunkie, examine its relevance again. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Paying attention has been my theme from the beginning — becoming more deliberate, as Thoreau wrote, in how I approach life. It’s been my desire to explore how that plays out in real life. It’s been my goal to be awake through whatever experiences come my way and to use writing to keep my own heart close to the surface in that endeavor. It’s more a personal pursuit than a public service. But, paying attention doesn’t just apply to the warm fuzzies. The rich pageant of life involves ups and downs, pushes and pulls, comings and goings, ease and hardship. To refuse to pay attention in the down side or the waning side of experiences is to avoid a large portion of existence. And, it is to miss out on the great volume of wisdom that challenging circumstances can provide. To create a way of living and approaching life that can be sustained through good times and bad seems to be the only relevant pursuit. As I meld important areas of focus–things like faith or parenting or creating–into one life experience, the process is no good if it only applies to the happy times or the easy moments. The real grease that enables the gears is what I have the courage to experience fully and transparently during difficult times. That’s where the real denial of numbness and slumber finds its depth and sustaining power. And, I’ve come to the conclusion that EyeJunkie really wouldn’t be mine if I didn’t give the rainbow-free soul searching it’s rightful place in the “recent posts” column.

Tues Ten 051810: Half-Finished Books

Oh good grief. Do you ever catch a glimpse of your own ridiculousness? Frankly, it happens to me all the time. It happened last night. Yesterday was a difficult and tiring day in many respects, and I was looking to wind down at the end of it. Sometimes one of my wind-down pasttimes is reading. Now, reading and I have been on the outs recently. It’s nothing that reading has done. I have just been focused on other things and my free time has been in short supply. I haven’t finished a book since the adventure I mentioned a while back with Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe in Just Kids. While the book left me a little saturated with 1970s icons, it was a good read with no long-lasting reading baggage.

As an aside, I’ll share two of my favorite quotes from that book…

pg. 40 “… I understood that in this small space of time we had mutually surrendered our loneliness and replaced it with trust.”
What a lovely description of the birth of soul mates. Honestly.

pg. 116 “The politics at Max’s were very similar to high school, except the popular people were not the cheerleaders or football heroes and the prom queen would most certainly be a he, dressed as a she, knowing more about being a she than most she’s.”
Made me laugh out loud. Honestly. (Where Max equals Andy Warhol 70s hang-out.)

Now, back to the list at hand and my reading habits. They’ve been non-habitual lately. Last night after the long day, I was interested in getting reacquainted with the process. I usually have a couple of books in progress when choosing my preferred distraction, and I have a couple of places I keep them. There is a basket under one of our side tables where some reside in hopes of keeping them from Baby Girl’s growing obsession with books, and well, tearing their pages. There is also a small shelf by the fireplace where I keep a few. And, there may be a few laying around where the mail or magazines rest or next to my computer bag. It’s a haphazard storage system at best. Last night I checked all those places to choose a current pre-bedtime selection. Here’s where ridiculous steps in.

Honestly, there were at least ten books that were at various stages of completion. With that number of choices, I was suddenly and completely overwhelmed by making the decision. My effort at relaxing suddenly became an anxious, self-doubting exercise in “which book should I choose.” Ridiculous, I tell you.

Then, an idea occurred to me. I could salvage this ridiculous moment–by sharing it with you. Whoa! with the ten mid-read books. Emphasis on ten. Now, I realize that I’ve been all literary lately, what with the poetry shared last week. I hope you non-pleasure readers won’t take it personally. I’m sure I’ll be back to some new record of ridiculous next week like “things I didn’t know were in my refrigerator.” For now, you’ll have to bear with me.

I give you this week’s Tuesday Ten: Half-Finished Books Laying Around–made even more fun (and possibly more ridiculous) by highlighting their respective “bookmarks” as well. Enjoy!

1. Lost Symbol by Dan Brown — page marked by a day job business card
[On loan from the Queen, but as usual, Dan freaked me out in the first couple of pages and I'm still a little freaked but so up for the cryptography.]

2. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan — page marked by a younger photo of Little Drummer Boy & Bug
[Fictional account of a real-life love affair with the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It has me caught up in being all sentimental about architects and their buildings.]

3. Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott — page marked by its own book jacket at the moment
[A book on faith and its winding, but eventual path. This is where I'll start.]

4. Making the Blue Plate Special by Florence Littauer — page marked by a baby picture of Baby Girl, awww
[A great book on the importance of creating traditions. Made me cry a few times already. Why haven't I finished this?]

5. Called to Worship by Vernon Whaley — page marked by the only true “bookmark” that’s white with a green/white polkadot border and two green, yellow and red turtles plus “Haley” that I cross-stitched on it sometime when I was busy reading Little House in the Big Woods
[A head-bending look at worshipping God using various folks in the Bible as teachers.]

6. The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl — page marked by Kroger checkout coupon for $2 off a Duracell battery value pack
[A mystery involving Dante's levels of hell and a serial killer set in the 1800s. I'm scared this one will scare the pants off me, which is probably why it's unfinished.]

7. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann — page marked by a scrap of artwork by Bug
[National Book Award winner I couldn't resist from Barnes and Noble, plus it starts with a dude walking a tightrope between two NYC skyscrapers. Cool.]

8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott — page marked by a Gatlinburg, TN brochure
[I've loved this book since I learned to read it, and I'm reading it again just for fun. But, seriously, how much fun can one reading Junkie really have with all these choices?]

9. The Key to Your Child’s Heart by Gary Smalley — page marked by a notecard with Walter Anderson blockprint of a cat
[My token parenting book, and it has GREAT insight on how we can inadvertently close up another person's heart. But, it is heavy and thought-provoking and actionable, so it doesn't help me relax.]

10. Robert Frost Poems (anthology) — no pages marked, since I seem to simply pick it up, leaf and read
[This is why he's showing up in posts recently.]

(#17: Grace is on deck. Swing, batter.)

Tues Ten 051110: Poems I’m Reading

For some reason lately, I’ve been reading more poetry. Maybe it was the whole Poetry Month thing. I’ve been revisiting some of the poems that I’ve enjoyed over the years and experiencing some new ones from poets I’m not quite as familiar with. There is something about a well-turned phrase that just gets my Junkie juices flowing. And, great poems are full of well-turned phrases and concise ideas expressed in unusual ways. It’s a type of writing I’ve only dabbled in, but one that I tremendously admire. I decided to share a few of the selections with you. I can’t say they are my favorites because the word favorite has always carried way to much pressure for me. What if I decide I really like another one tomorrow? “Favorite” is such a relative term in my book.  So, let’s just say these are verses I’m enjoying at this moment. That totally leaves it open for me to change my Junkie mind. So, this week I give you the Tuesday Ten: Poems I’m Reading. Complete with a few lines I enjoy from each. Maybe you’ll enjoy reading them too.

1. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I can say with complete assurance that Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. I don’t mind using the term “favorite” with his work. I’m completely enamored of a poet who can rhyme without you realizing it’s a rhyme. This verse is one I continually come back to.

2. “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings —
I know why the caged bird sings!

I love the line… “And he would be free.” It speaks of an intense and unquenchable desire. He would be. Free.
full text here

3. “When Death Comes” by Mary Oliver

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.

I’ve posted this poem before. Those two lines are remarkable. It finishes with “I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” Indeed.
full text here

4. “Putting in the Seed” by Robert Frost.

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

There he is again. I’ve always thought those last two lines were such a picture of courage and determination.
full text here

5. “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A poem, in part, about “grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight.” Sometimes the light is brightest when we realize it is waning.
full text here

6. “Words from a Totem Animal” by W. S. Merwin

Send me out into another life
lord because this one is growing faint
I do not think it goes all the way

My one-word description of this poem is ethereal. It is long and challenging, full of searching and beautiful.
full text here

7. “Narration” by Giorgos Seferis

We’ve grown used to him; like everything else you’re used to
he doesn’t stand for anything
and I talk to you about him because I can’t find
anything that you’re not used to;

George Seferis is a Greek poet I’ve mentioned before. This poem describes an encounter with a local man, someone people are “used to.” Can there be anything sadder than someone you’re just used to? I hope I never see the ones I love that way.
full text here

8. “Daddy Longlegs” by Ted Kooser

it would be the secret dream
of walking alone across the floor of my life
with an easy grace, and with love enough
to live on at the center of myself.

This lone walk of living at peace with the core of ourselves inspite of the world is found in a picture of the small and insignificant march of an insect. Amazing what we see when we pay attention.
full text here

9. “Passion for Solitude” by Cesare Pavese

A gulp of my drink, and my body can taste the life
of plants and of rivers. It feels detached from things.
A small dose of silence suffices, and everything’s still,
in its true place, just like my body is still.

Though translated from Italian, Pavese’s language is frank and beautiful describing a supper in solitude and the breath of calm and stillness it brings.
full text here

10. “Reluctance” by Robert Frost

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

This may be my “favorite” Frost poem. His observation of human nature is very astute in all his poetry, but none more than in describing our utter resistance to letting go.
full text here