Category Archives: Inspiration

You Can’t

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Play Chopin’s Polonaise
Like Horowitz you can’t

Say that and not remember
It was my idea you can’t

Eat those kisses you can’t
Leave all the letters

You can’t hide
You can’t forget me

Poem’s first appearance in my journal with my tattered copy of Ueland’s book.

I can’t forgive you
No never

You can’t explain that
Or solve that equation

You can’t know what I’m thinking
You can’t shoot like LeBron James

You can’t trust certain people
Who stand in corners

They can’t be noticed at first
Shadowy they are caught

In the glow of Dante’s Inferno
Where they assumed

They might be trapped forever
They turn their backs

When you enter the room
They eat popcorn noisily

In movie theaters
But I do that you say

Does that mean I can’t be trusted
Not necessarily

Certain traits build on one another
Watch Shaun Livingston on the court
Listen to Martha Argerich play Liszt

About this poem:

This poem started with a riff on “you can’t.” At one point I dedicated it to Siah Armajani, a conceptual artist who created many amazing pieces. Others might have said to him: “You can’t do that.”

As I was working on the poem, I ran across a sports commentator’s YouTube video. “You can’t be LeBron James, but you can be Shaun Livingston,” the commentator said. I’m not a big basketball fan, but I do know that LeBron James is 6’8” and considered to be the best basketball player in the world. I found that Shaun Livingston (6’7”) is highly efficient at mid-range and plays good defense. He may not be the star, but he’s there and can be trusted to help his team.

Likewise Horowitz and Argerich—both are amazing pianists. Horowitz was a great soloist, but watch Martha Argerich play Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major with a full orchestra.

I wanted the poem to have both a dark and a light side. I hope the reader puzzles over who can and can’t be trusted, and also what we can or can’t accomplish, as well as the way the word can’t sometimes comes to dominate our thinking.

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Writing Suggestion:

During the last six-weeks of  our “Joy of Writing” workshop here in Sanibel, Florida, we used Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write as inspiration in our exploration of creativity. “I want to assure you,” she writes, “that no writing is a waste of time–no creative work. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good. It has stretched your understanding.”

Often we tie our writing to some standard of perfection and forget that by letting our words go out there, then, and only then, can we create something new. Perhaps we place too much weight on the judgment of others, and not enough on the divine spark within us. “Everybody is talented, original, and has something important to say,” says Ueland.

So with that in mind, pull out your notebook and let it rip. Trust yourself. Write about your day. Write about what you can or can’t do. Write about the way the light looks coming through your window. Write about sports or music. Go for three pages or ten minutes. Just write. You can write.

“I Write Because” by Kathi Straubing

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And so it began, that voice that nudges me to pick up pen and paper and write. It became relentless—that voice that demands time and space. And so I began.

I write because—because—?

“Why? Why do you write?” The voice would not let go!

I don’t know. I write because—because I have to!

I write because I have to!

I write because I want to understand life, my life and yours.

I write because I need to know my purpose and how dreams take wing and fly.

I write because I want to know where I came from and where I’m going.

I write because I want to know what lies beneath and what lies around and through and above. And is there a heaven? Filled with light?

I write because I feel the grass under my bare feet and, well, why is it soft and green? And why does the tree grow tall and straight?

I write because the bird’s song astonishes me. And I want to know how does a bird know how to choose a mate? And how to build a nest? And when is it time to fly away? And how does it know where the cat lurks?

I write because I want to know where God is and what God is. God is everywhere, in everything—or so they say, and how is that possible?

I write because I want to hear the voice of Spirit. Because I want to know its touch. Because Spirit must be one with poems and prayers and blessings. Oh yes! And in kind words spoken gently.

I write because I want to make sense of confusion, of madness. The world does seem maddening, chaotic some days—when simplicity would be so easy. Or not.

I write because words can be so quiet, and life can be so loud. And why are people afraid to touch or be touched? Why is everyone running so fast?

I write because I want to know why fear is so easy, and love can be so hard, since that’s what we want the most—love.

I write because I want to know how we ask for what we need. Why that scares us so! Knowing that you might say, “No!” because you may not understand my need.

I write because I want to know why it is so difficult to lay down judgment and criticism and just breathe for a minute or two—together.

I write because I want to untangle the knots of unknowing, of misguidance, and reweave the yarns into a tapestry of hope.

I write because I want to know, because I need to know. Don’t you? Because I have so many questions and, regrettably, so few answers. And because life is so damned short and what does it all mean anyway?

I write because I need to know that it is okay to be afraid sometimes, to not know the answer, let alone the right question.

I write because I want to meet my hunger, my thirst for life and love, for joy and beauty, and to begin to satisfy them.

I write because I believe—because I believe, that somewhere out there God is listening—that someone, somewhere feels my words, my longing—to be.

I write. I write because I have to! Because it is like breathing air. And so, I write.

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Kathi Straubing, the guest author for this post, has been a participant in my “Joy of Writing” class here on Sanibel these past six weeks. Kathi read this piece during our final class, and I asked her if she would be willing to share it on this blog. Thanks, Kathi.

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Writing Idea:  Using Kathi’s writing for inspiration, how would you answer the question: “Why do I write?” Or take one line from her writing and use it as a prompt for a ten-minute free writing to explore a story from your own life. For example, write about a time you tried to “untangle the knots of unknowing” or why “fear is so easy and love can be so hard.” These big, universal questions are often the ones that hover around and above our writing and bring us to the page.

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“Why do I write? It’s not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness.” Jonathan Safran Foer

“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”  Flannery O’Connor

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Starting All Over: Spiders, Webs, and a New Year

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Here we are ready to start again. A new day, a new calendar, a new year. A few months from now we will have forgotten how fresh our world seems today, but for right now all is well.

One of my friends sends out a poem every Monday. I particularly like the one she sent this past Monday, January 1, 2017.

New Year’s by Dana Gioia

Let other mornings honor the miraculous.
Eternity has festivals enough.
This is the feast of our mortality. . . .

The new year always brings us what we want
Simply by bringing us along—to see
A calendar with every day uncrossed,
A field of snow without a single footprint.

As the new year begins, we see “a calendar with every day uncrossed/ A field of snow without a single footprint.”

My January calendar already has a few prospective footprints. In a few days, my friend Mary and I will head to Key West for the much-anticipated writer’s workshops, sponsored by the Key West Literary Seminar.  Mary will be working with the poet, Rowan Ricardo Phillips; and I, with Dani Shapiro, who has written novels and several memoirs. I’m hoping to take a few small steps toward the completion of a collection of short prose pieces I’ve written over the years.

Key West Schooner

While we will be going to Key West for the workshops, we will also stroll along Duval Street, eat fresh fish in our favorite restaurants, enjoy the people we always meet at the Key West Bed and Breakfast, watch spectacular sunsets, sail on a schooner, and maybe even leave a few footprints in the sand. Going to Key West is truly “a feast of our mortality”–a carpe-diem sort of place.

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On another carpe diem note, I’ve resolved not to watch (and read) so much news this year. Alain de Botton concludes his 2014 book, The News: A User’s Manual (a serendipitous find yesterday at the Sanibel Library book sale) with these words:

We should at times forgo our own news in order to pick up on the far stranger, more wondrous headlines of those less eloquent species that surround us: kestrels and snow geese, spider beetles and black-faced leafhoppers, lemurs and small children–all creatures usefully uninterested in our own melodramas, counterweights to our anxieties and self-absorption.

Our Spider: Crab-Like Spiny Orb Weaver (Wikipedia)

His words make me think of the spider I have been watching build her sturdy web across the corner of our deck here on Sanibel. The web is an engineering marvel spanning a five-foot corner. It has withstood rain, wind, and my sometimes awkward maneuvers to water the plant that anchors one of her filaments. I accidentally knocked it down a couple of weeks ago, but the next day she started all over–swinging on her almost invisible silk threads, like a tiny, skirted acrobat in mid-air.

 

And there are our five grandchildren: each one a delight–any day spent with one of them is the best day ever. They help me see an ordinary spider web and lots of other small (and large) wonders I might not notice. With them I also do things I wouldn’t ordinarily do, like trying to fly a kite with Lucia in Dalkey, Ireland, on a cold, not-so-windy December day.

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On Writing:  Here’s hoping that you will find new life and happiness in the words you spin in the coming year. You never know what you might catch. An idea you didn’t know you had? A moment easily forgotten?  A story to hold onto? A sense of your own self?  Maybe we can forget the news for a little while each day and settle into a chair with a notebook and a good book. Or take a walk in a park. Or by the beach. Or watch a spider. Or talk with a child. And then come back and write about it.

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“Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider’s web?”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Dorian. “I don’t understand it. But for that matter I don’t understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle.”
“What’s miraculous about a spider’s web?” said Mrs. Arable. “I don’t see why you say a web is a miracle-it’s just a web.”
“Ever try to spin one?” asked Dr. Dorian.”
― E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

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Sachiko: A Story of Hope and Peace

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I recently had a conversation with Caren Stelson, the author of Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story (Carolrhoda Books, 2016). We had just learned that her book was on the longlist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. “I’m flabbergasted,” said Caren when I offered my congratulations. “This is so affirming.”

We met in a Minneapolis suburb at a Panera restaurant amid the big box stores of Home Depot and Costco, a place far away from Nagasaki and Sachiko Yasui. Yet as Caren and I talked, the incredible story of Sachiko began to come alive for me. It was almost as if Sachiko herself were the third person at our small table.

Sachiko, who is now 78, was six years old on August 9, 1945, the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Because she was a child on that day, she wants children everywhere to know her story. “I think it must be very hard for you to feel what happened because you are so very young,” she said to the children of a sixth grade class, “but I’ll try to speak about how strong you can be as a human being when you encounter difficulties in the future.”

Sachiko’s story is told in short chapters that cover fifty years of her life from the day of the bombing, when she went out to play with friends, to the 50th anniversary of the bombing when, at age 56, she was invited to speak to a sixth grade class about her experience as a hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”). Between Sachiko’s chapters are interspersed sections of supplemental material about such topics as the history of World War II, the bombing of Japan, and the long-term effects of radiation.

The writing is straightforward, never preachy, with quick, punchy sentences appropriate to the reading level of young people, yet not condescending, as readers of all levels can appreciate the concrete details that bring the story to life. Camphor trees, cicadas, and Sachiko’s grandmother’s green bowl found in the ruins of their home work as recurring motifs and metaphors to illuminate connections to nature, the past, and re-birth. They also serve as touchstones for the reader to navigate through a fifty-year time span.

The arc of this story takes readers on a journey from great sorrow and massive tragedy to incredible hope and the wish for peace. The story is personal and yet universal as Sachiko, who was inspired not only by her parents, but also by Helen Keller, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, comes to find forgiveness and the courage to tell others about the power of healing. Her talk on the 50th anniversary of the bombing was the beginning of many years of telling her story and advocating for peace. “What happened to me must never happen to you,” she said.

As Sachiko stood before the children on that day, she was reminded of her three brothers and sister. Toshi died the day of the bombing; her brothers Aki and Ichiro, who suffered from extensive radiation injuries, died shortly thereafter; and her sister, Misa, some years later from leukemia. Sachiko herself battled thyroid cancer that took her voice until she fought to regain it. Both her mother and father were gone. She alone had survived.

“This is an important day to talk about peace,” she said. “I hope to give you something to move your heart, to make you think of our peace for the future by telling you about the real misery that happened in the past. To make it happen, I have to share my heart . . . with you.” And so she told the children her story. It began the way this book opens with a six-year-old girl who was hungry because of the long war, who waited for the family hen to lay an egg, and then went out to play with her friends. Above them, the children heard the sound of a B-29. At 11:02 when the bomb exploded, they were just half a mile from the hypocenter. Her world was demolished. “Roaring winds ripped the bark off the camphor trees and split their trunks . . . .Dust erased the lines of the earth. Day turned to night.”

Sochiko lay under the rubble until her uncle found her and pulled her out. That evening the family buried her four friends. Sachiko’s little brother, Toshi, who was killed by a sharp stick to his head, was dead in her mother’s arms. He also was buried near the four friends.

During our conversation, I learned that Caren was inspired to write about Sachiko after hearing her speak at a Minneapolis ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We talked about Caren’s five trips to Nagasaki to interview Sachiko and her extensive research (evident by the notes and bibliography in the back of the book). Sachiko came to find her own voice because of what she learned from Helen Keller, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King—and her father, who said to her, “This is the only world we live in, Sachiko. Never say evil words; otherwise, we’ll not see peace. Hate only produces hate.”

It has been a long time since I’ve been so moved by a story. The book, although written for young people, helped me to better understand a war I was born into. I would have been about the same age as Sachiko’s little brother, Toshi, when the atomic bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When we began our conversation, Caren said she had learned how much we don’t know or remember about that horrible day and how the national narrative we are told is not the only one to examine. “We have to be careful,” she said, “about the way we read our history because there is much controversy over the dropping of the bombs. It is relevant today. We must choose our leaders carefully.” By focusing on the story of one person, Sachiko, a habakusha who was shunned, Caren said she could explore how a child of war finds her way to peace.

“How does one get there?” she said. “How can this help our young people? I had to find the layers. What was happening in her life, the world, the war? I had to explore all the ways one person came to tell this story.” She paused and continued, “I don’t want this to be an apocalyptic story. I want it to be about a child, a story of hope. ”

One of my questions for Caren  related to the name of this blog, “The Joy of Writing.”   “Since I call my blog “The Joy of Writing,” what have been the joys (or not) of writing this book?” I wondered. Our time together ran out before we could talk about my question, but later Caren sent me this note:

It was a pleasure to meet you this afternoon to talk about SACHIKO. I never really answered your question about the joy of writing SACHIKO. The real joy of writing SACHIKO is connecting with others in friendship. I thoroughly enJOYed being with you this afternoon.

Then she added:

I forgot to say—now we have a child’s voice rising up through the three darkest holes of World War II. We have Germany’s Anne Frank and her diary. We have Hiroshima’s Sadako and her thousand paper cranes. And now we have Nagasaki’s Sachiko and her story. I feel in my bones if Anne Frank and Sadako had been allowed to grow to adulthood, they would have become wise peacemakers, like Sachiko, sharing love and hope with the world.

Thank you, Caren Stelson, for bringing Sachiko’s story, this beautiful book of forgiveness and peace, to us.

Sachiko Yasui and Caren Stelson at their first meeting. Nagasaki, 2010

Sachiko Yasui and Caren Stelson at their first meeting. Nagasaki, 2010

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Writing Idea:  No matter what your writing project, try doing research or interviews to connect your story or subject to a larger historical perspective. Another idea: how would you write the story of a difficult time in your life (or another person’s life) for a child you know?

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“When you grow up, remember to tell my story.”  Sachiko Yasui

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

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For the Love of Books

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Sometimes I think that my love of books and reading can be a way to avoid writing. It’s so much easier to pick up a book and disappear into another world than it is to pick up my pen and create another world.

Every Sunday, The New York Times Book Review publishes a feature entitled “By the Book” where notable authors and other important people are asked several questions about their current reading. I enjoy the wide variety of answers to questions like “What books are on your nightstand right now?” and “What’s the last great book you read?” Sometimes I wonder how these authors find the time to read so widely and keep up their amazing writing lives at the same time. Maybe they don’t belong to three book groups!

I have to thank these book groups and my writer friends for inspiring me to read books I might not otherwise have chosen. There are also the books for upcoming trips (Hemingway’s A Movable Feast) and books by writers whose workshops I’ll be attending (Kate Moses’s Wintering), not to mention books written by friends (Marge Barrett’s Called: The Making and Unmaking of a Nun). I can hardly keep up.

The books stacked beside me today have given me so much pleasure this summer. As much I love each of them, I’m going to try to put them back on the shelf and concentrate on writing—as soon as I return from my next trip, that is!IMG_0623

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A sampling of my favorites from this summer’s reading:

The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

Wonderful exploration of four plants (tulip, apple, marijuana, potato) chosen by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum garden book group led by Toni McNaron, one of my favorite teachers.

 

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

This novel led to one of the liveliest discussions about a book I’ve had in long time. Tears and cheers for chimps!

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Oh, the wonders of reading Jane Austen! This novel gave me so many ideas for the work I need to do on the novel that I’m taking out of the drawer. “Yes, I am going to do that,” she says to herself.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Somewhere along the line I missed reading this classic, which took my breath away. An amazing work of art.

Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

Fun to see what a writer like Anne Tyler does with the original “vinegar girl,” Katherina, in Shakespeare’s The Taming of Shrew.

Called: The Making and Unmaking of a Nun by Marge Barrett

Hats off to my friend, Marge Barrett, for her lovely memoir! So proud of you, my friend. You inspire me to sit down and write!

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In the I-love-to-hear-from-you department: How does your reading affect your writing life? What are you reading this summer?

If (like me) your writing has suffered this summer for whatever reason, try writing three pages a day for the next week in your writer’s notebook. Record your day, your doings, the way the moonlight looks on a July night, your garden as it becomes robust or not, the storm that left you without power for two days, your trip (real or imaginary) to Paris. Three pages and stop. That is enough.

In these stressful times, I hope each of you finds a few hours each week to nurture a rich, creative life—as you seek solace and joy in both your reading and your writing.

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For a taste of Stegner’s profoundly moving prose, here is his narrator Lyman Ward at the end of Angle of Repose:

” ‘What do you mean, ‘Angle of Repose?’ she [Lyman’s estranged wife] asked me [Lyman Ward] when I dreamed we were talking about Grandmother’s life, and I said it was the angle at which a man or woman finally lies down. I suppose it is; and yet it was not that I hoped to find when I began to pry around in Grandmother’s life. I thought when I began, and still think, that there was another angle in all those years when she was growing old and older and very old, and Grandfather was matching her year for year, a separate line that did not intersect with hers. They were vertical people, they lived by pride, and it is only by the ocular illusion of perspective that they can be said to have met. But he had not been dead two months when she lay down and died too, and that may indicate that at that absolute vanishing point they did intersect. They had intersected for years, for more than he himself would ever admit.”

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Also the words on my cup (in the photo):

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”    (unknown)

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