New Life Story Seeds # 8
Retreating to Advance
Dear Friends,
What writer does not secretly dream of a cabin in the woods, a hermitage, a quiet place to think and write in solitude? In the midst of a crisis-filled life, Jon Katz found just such a retreat, impossible though it seemed at the time. This issue's quotation and juicy questions come from his memoir, "Running to the Mountain." The "Hearth and Soul" column continues with its ongoing saga of attempted restoration of home and spirit.
I'm happy to report that I'm now moving much closer to living the life of my dreams--with one exception. It seems there's not enough time in the day to do the things that "must" be done, let alone time to relax and smell the delphiniums. Something's got to give, as they say; and on top of everything else, I've just accepted a teaching job in a local college. Not too many hours the first semester, but my schedule needs pruning. For the time being, I'm shortening the author profile in the newsletter, holding it to a maximum of one paragraph. Those profiles have been a joy to research and write, but they're also time-consuming.
Thanks for all the encouraging feedback on the newsletter. I enjoy hearing about your writings and your lives. It's also fun to know where everyone lives; I'd like to stick pins on a world map to show where all 140 of us are. I'd love it if you'd e-mail me to chat at: ellenmoore@newlifestories.com
Wishing you all the comfort, time, and space you need in your new life stories,
Ellen Moore
In This Issue:
A Thoughtful Quotation Juicy Questions Running to the Mountain Hearth and Soul Links/Resources/Gift Book Ideas
A Thoughtful Quotation
"People like me are drawn again and again to sacred books, holy men, and revealed words. Then we almost inevitably become confused, disillusioned, frustrated. We pull back. We are too skeptical to submit to absolute faith, much as we might want to.
But we can't... live without faith altogether. So we bounce back and forth from one state to the other, spiritual refugees, adrift in a void. We can't let go because we badly want a spiritual framework for our lives; we can't, don't even dare, believe we might find truths on our own; we look everywhere else for answers. We want change and fear it."
Jon Katz "Running to the Mountain: A Journal of Faith and Change"
Juicy Questions
To what extent do you identify or not identify with Jon Katz?
To what experiences and teachings are you drawn?
In the past or present, have you experienced spiritual confusion, disillusionment, or frustration?
If you have a spiritual framework, how would you describe it?
What is your relationship to change? Do you seek or fear it?
From what raw materials did you construct that framework?
Do you believe answers to our deepest and most pressing questions exist?
If you find answers, where, how, when, do you find them?
What role does ambivalence play or not play in your beliefs and your life?
Are you on a quest?
What if you were on a quest and didn't realize it?
How would you know?
With what philosophies, theologies, and beliefs are you most comfortable?
Which of them puzzle, irritate, or frighten you?
To what extent do you see yourself as a loner or a joiner when it comes to spiritual practice?
In what ways would you or would you not describe yourself as a spiritual seeker?
What is your truth?
What part does writing play or not play in the living and expressing of your truth?
Running to the Mountain
To begin the prologue to "Running to the Mountain," Jon Katz quotes from his spiritual mentor, Trappist monk and writer, Thomas Merton: "Struggle in my heart all week. My own moral conflict never ceases. Knowing I cannot and must not simply submit to the standards imposed on me, and merely conform as 'they' would like. This I am convinced is wrong--but the pressure never ceases." Near age 50, Jon's life seemed to echo Merton's. In the summer of 1997, the stirrings of change rose up in his soul, and he began a search for spiritual peace by finding an unlikely, ramshackle mountain- top cabin in the Adirondacks. Leaving home, wife, and daughter behind, he took his laptop, two dogs, and stacks of books by Merton and Mencken (adding a cynical balance to Merton's joyousness) to embark on a series of adventures-- frustrations, delays, and mishaps--in buying and renovating his retreat. I won't spoil the story by telling you what he did or didn't find there, except to mention one turning point, an extended dialogue with the spirit of his mentor.
Hearth and Soul
Sunday, January 9, 2000
The Gurney and Burpee garden catalogs have come in the mail, and I haven't taken time for more than a glance. The paperwhites are dry and scentless, and I haven't had the energy to buy or start more. The gardening books say the bulbs should now be discarded, but I wonder. It couldn't hurt to put them outside in the spring to see if they bloom next year. A gardening experiment. At the very least, they'll serve as appetizers for the chipmunks.
Ever since I began devouring books on Lamaze, child development, organic gardening, and nutrition in my first earth-mother phase some 30 years ago, I've dreamed of "the white room." After novelist and agrarian reformer Louis Bromfield reclaimed worn-out farming land in Ohio to create Malabar Farm, he applied the same organic farming technology to a ruined jungle plantation in South America--"Malabar do Brazil." "The White Room" was an essay in which he described his beloved spiritual retreat, a bare, white room in the plantation house where he wrote and contemplated the vagaries of life. As I remember, the room contained only a painting, a chair, and a desk facing a window with a view of the wilderness.
For the last week or so, I've been in the midst of a question and fantasy episode variously titled "Can this house be saved?" or "Can this house be made beautiful?" It's essentially a sturdy house, but it's crumbling around the edges, set in the midst of tangled overgrowth. Wild grapevines have choked maples and azaleas, the poison ivy seems to have overtaken the pachysandra; and the roses and blackberries and rhododendrons have run amok.
Grandiose plots rose in my winter-starved brain, all requiring a swat-team of "the representatives of brute force," as Emilio calls them: clearing of all dead trees and shrubs, kitchen renovation, steaming off the dining room wallpaper (flocked brown, gold, and gray cabbage roses on an iridescent, watered silk background), and adding matching window boxes and shutters to the front and back of the house.
Realistically, I knew none of these plans was going to come to fruition in the near future--still, it was fun to dream. As I was making mental sketches and choosing lobelia for the window boxes, part of the back porch fell off. Bang. Just like that. A glass door and a little wall in the entryway in a hundred pieces on the patio.
Probably dry rot or wet rot or termites. Haven't yet had the heart to step over the broken glass to inspect the damage. Clearly, it's time to call the neighborhood handyman ("no job too big or too small"), but life has been unusually hectic around here, and the phone call still hasn't been made. (Note passive sentence construction to avoid assigning blame to either or both occupants of house).
As I'm contemplating this new development, I take another good look at the back porch (yardstick in hand), which has essentially been abandoned and used as a junk room. I sniff the sweet smell of reclamation beneath the dust and paint chips, and revive an old dream of making that back porch into a writing retreat. A white room.
I had already discovered and reclaimed a patio hidden under a foot and a half of leaf mold, a large basement storage area that is now my current office, and a boarded-up downstairs fireplace blocked by boxes of books. For a small house, there are a surprising number of unused nooks and niches.
So the entryway and the porch need to be repaired anyway. Why not order a few more repairs, replace the broken screens, add an air conditioner and heater, cart away the broken chairs and cardboard boxes, and slap a thick coat of white paint everywhere? The porch is up high, a story above my present headquarters. There's a 180 degree view of the yard, creek, and woods' and floor-to-ceiling screened windows on the West, North, and East for cross-breezes in the spring and fall.
I'd need to do a drastic paring down of papers and files, but that would be A Good Thing. I'd have easy access to both garden and kitchen so I could cook those macrobiotic meals I'm supposed to be eating for my various chronic conditions. Could this arrangement possibly work? Would I feel cramped in this new space? Too cold in the winter and too warm in the summer?
The one solid wall has barely enough room for a bookcase; a corner cabinet could hold most of my files. The desk and the wing chair I work in could go in the middle. Another corner might be big enough for a wicker rocker and an art table. I would hang bird feeders and baskets of rose geraniums under the eaves. I would be filled with silence and words, with sunrises and sunsets, with apartness and trees and birds and clouds and flowers.
"The seeds of future events are carried within ourselves," wrote Lawrence Durell. "They are implicit in us and unfold according to the law of their own nature." I always thought I was a mover and a shaker, a real make-it-happen kind of person. But now I wonder. New seeds seem to be germinating. Seeds of change and renewal. Seeds of chaos and upheaval. In this new chapter, I am the moved and the shaken, and it feels--well--it feels risky and hopeful.
A small, simple, bare room filled with sunlight and blessed emptiness in the midst of a life burdened with "too muchness?" Something tells me it's worth the candle.
Links/Resources/Gift Book Ideas
Visit Staci Backauskas' intriguing site for a preview of "The Fifth Goddess," a stunning new novel about spiritual search, struggle, and fulfillment. If you're looking for encouragement and perseverance to create the life of your dreams, read her own inspiring new life story. http://www.fifthgoddess.com/
Explore "Catherine's Treasures," a collection of inspiration, humor, and poetry to keep or to send to friends. It's a site bound to lift your spirits, and the graphics are gorgeous! http://www.catherines-treasures.itgo.com/
Have you checked in at "Camp SARK" yet? Is your inner child in need of some R & R? If it's time to let your imagination run free, get out your crayons, put on your most outrageous outfit, and skip on over. If you have to ask "What's a SARK?" then you need to visit at least once! http://www.campsark.com/
"A Good Read" is actually a great read! Artist/author/sculptor Judith Tramayne-Barth has searched the web to bring you a wealth of resources: free software, fabulous sites for writers, a free murder mystery, and more fascinating links than you can imagine. http://www.agoodread.com/
The "Homefires Hearth" website offers recipes, money-saving household tips, and articles on making your home all it can be. Sign up for the free newsletter and browse through the archives for practical home ideas. Go to "Making and Giving Journal Jars" for a ready-to-make jar for a gift or for yourself. Three pages of prompts to print out and cut. http://www.homefireshearth.com/issues/jj.html.
"Into the Centre," is a free newsletter from psychotherapist and corporate trainer Wayne C. Allen. It has an emphasis on insightful living, healthy relationships, and body-mind issues. Free, downloadable resources. Take time to search the archives for a life-changing article entitled "No One is Coming." http://www.phoenixcentre.com/
Eldonna Bouton's newest book is "Journaling From the Heart," featuring 75 assignments taken from her online workshops. Includes guidelines for getting the most out of your independent journal work and forming a journaling support group, along with an extensive bibliography of journaling books and resources. Order direct at: http://www.whole-heart.com/main.html
"Shelter for the Spirit: Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World" by Victoria Moran may speak to you if you care about creating a comfortable and soul-nourishing home. Reflections and ideas for simple and meaningful living.
Katz, Jon. Running to the Mountain: A Journey of Faith and Change. Villard Books, 1999.
Katz, Jon. Death by Station Wagon. Bantam Books, 1994.
Katz, Jon. The Father's Club: A Suburban Detective Mystery. Bantam Books, 1997.
Hermit, and contemplative, writer and lover, Merton has inspired generations of spiritual seekers of all persuasions. We now have a new perspective on Merton's life, thanks to intensive scholarship and the publication of more of his private papers. Merton, Thomas. "Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk & Writer" (The Journals of Thomas Merton, V. 2). Harper San Francisco, 1997.
Merton, Thomas. The Seven Storey Mountain. Harvest Books, 1999.
Merton, Thomas (Patrick Hart & Jonathan Montaldo, Editors). The Intimate Merton: His Life From His Journals. Harper San Francisco, 1999.
If you saw "It's a Wonderful Life" too many times over the holidays and got an overdose of sweetness and light, you'll appreciate H. L. Mencken as an antidote. Biting, bitter, dyspeptic, and dead-on hilarious as he skewers everything that offends his curmudgeonly sensibilities. "Mencken: A Life" (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf). Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Mencken, H. L.. "American Language." Random House, 1999.
Mencken, H. L.. "Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks." (Maryland Paperback Bookshelf). Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Mencken, H. L.. "The Vintage Mencken." Vintage Books, 1990.
A chapter in "The Heritage" discusses "the white room." Bromfield Geld, Ellen & Lucy Dos Passos Coggin. The Heritage: A Daughter's Memories of Louis Bromfield. Ohio University Press, 1999.
Carolyn Heilbrun relished her solitude in "the small house." After she turned sixty, she and her husband each bought their own separate retreat houses. Heilbrun, Carolyn G. "The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty." Ballantine Books, 1998.
In order to write, a woman needs an income and a room of her own, insisted Virginia Woolf. A book that changed the world. Woolf, Virginia. "A Room of One's Own." Harcourt Brace, 1990.
Woolf, Virginia (Anne O. Bell, Editor). "Diary of Virginia Woolf." Harcourt Brace, 1980.
Woolf, Virginia (Susan Dick, Editor). "The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf." Harcourt Brace, 1989.
© Copyright Ellen Moore, Ph.D. 2000