adventure

critics’ tribunal

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One of my prevailing awarenesses as I write more consistently, is of the different inner critics and judgements that my work attracts.

I am loathe to dispatch all my inner critics, because some of them make very helpful, quality-increasing contributions.  So, by careful attention, I have managed to identify some of the different critic voices, and from this I have found some who can stay (carefully managed) and one or two who are on their way out.

I would like to put the critics in the dock:

Proof-reader, what do you have to say for yourself?

PR:  Thank you for asking.  In fact I am doing my best to contribute to team extraplorer by making sure that the writing that you do is clear of mistakes that will distract people who are reading your work.  Also, I have been in training for some time (although to be honest some of my training was in France so I am aware that sometimes I do hesitate between two punctuations).  Also, I do my best to reflect the way you hear your words in your head, even if that requires grammatical latitude.  So I think I should stay.

Sound-engineer, what can you say in your defence – why should you stay?

SE:  My specialist area is listening to the musicality of the words.  I try to be attuned to rhythm, pitch and volume.  If a word seems to clash, I do my best to find another solution.  I’m also aware that the audience are hearing things in different places, so I go and sit in different seats to be sure that they can have the truest experience where they are.  Honestly, you need me on your team.

Truth, you sometimes stand in the most inconvenient places, and quite often immoveable.  Why should you stay?

T:  I have learned wisdom in many deep ways.  I know you well and love you.  I don’t want you to stray into places that make you vulnerable to deception or delusion.  I know I sometimes cause time-consuming rethinking, but I believe in you and want your journey to be anchored in what is real.  But I must point out that I also allow you lots of space to play.  I am not a box-ticker.  I understand that we are together in an adventure, and we will learn about each other on the way.  But be aware, there is someone else who tries to disguise himself as Truth, and he is not, he is Belittle.

Belittle, what are you doing here?

B:  More to the point, what are you doing here?  I can see that some of these words seem to be appealing to some people, but really they are probably mostly spam, or just liking you to be liked back.  You know what the internet is like.  And honestly, you’re excited about people following your blog.  Pah, there are billions of people in the world and you are getting excited about forty-four of them.  It’s not the best ratio is it?  And while we’re thinking about ratios, the effort expended on thinking about this compared to the result.  Pitiful!

Darkness, are you there?

D:  No, you’re just imagining it.

Judgement?

[…]

Despite, or maybe because, of its heavy silence, I have become increasingly aware of the presence of Judgement, because it is present with some of my writing, but absent in others.  For example, I felt a lack of judgement about the found poems, when I’m writing ‘thinking thoughts’ and when I am writing about something more universal, like leaving my thirties behind.  But when I wanted to write about something more tender or personal, I can feel this mean feeling that ‘this is not real writing.’

Darkness and Judgement seem to form a team that is really difficult to spot or deal with.

But I feel that Darkness and Judgement can be unsettled, disrupted into revealing their presence, and especially this is true in the presence of other people.  They thrive on silence, and fear, but when this is being dispersed, it is like they get dispersed at the same time.

As I bring different mirrors to my writing, by noticing other people’s stories about their writing, I am becoming more able to expose Darkness and Judgement to the light.  Exposed to the light it turns out there are two Judgements, one, an imposter, who tries to crush creativity through shame.  Another, a sensitive and nuanced critic who is there to increase the quality of my perception of my work, who works in tandem with Truth and Sound-Engineer and Proof-Reader to check that my work honours the wholeness of my intentions.

True Judgement, what would you like to say?

TJ:  I am still learning how to judge carefully and honestly.  I bring together the work and the team, and try to hear clearly each person’s contribution, and how it relates to the essence of your work.  I slow them down and make them explain themselves if what they say is muddled.  It is so important that I am not confused with impostor Judgement, because without me you will not be able to express the fullness of what is on your heart, or in your mind, or vision.

Be patient with me because I am learning with you, and it will take time for us to trust each other, and for us to become stronger and more confident of our contribution.

Having a range of critics who I am comfortable with and who can stay is giving me confidence to expel those whose presence is only destructive.

things I want to tell my children but might forget – winter walking

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Walking in streets

Wherever we decide to go, we will be likely to be walking down streets to get there.  Hopefully it will be a sunny day, either crisp and cold, if it’s winter, or a fresh feeling in the air if it’s spring, or a hazy sunshine if it’s summer, or a bit blustery if it’s autumn.  If it’s raining, we will all have umbrellas.

As I am writing it is winter, so we will think about winter walking in streets.  There are two main kinds of winter walking.  The first kind is on a bright sunny day with blue sky.  On bright sunny days, it is normally colder, so you get some startling sensations.  One is the sensation of the bright light dazzling your eyes.  It is true that there might be a brighter light in summer, but in winter your eyes may not have seen such brightness for a while, so it feels more intense.  Also, if there is a frost or snow, the bleached colours reflect the sun more, adding to its intensity.  Another sensation is the breathing in cold air through your mouth.  Winter time often means spending lots of time indoors, with only indoors air to breathe.  This makes the sensation of breathing in outside air startlingly distinctive.  It is like breathing in freshness and adventure and mystery and delight.  As well as the feeling of the cold air in your lungs, there is the sharp tingling of the cold air being breathed through your nose.  However warm the rest of you is, your nose is poking out and gets the full freezingness of the atmosphere.  Even if this is a little bit painful, it makes you feel alive.  And this distinction between warm and cold is something you can only feel in winter.  In the summer, your body is warm, the air is warm, your breathing is warm.  But in the winter, while you may be warm as toast, the air around you is cold as ice.  These changes in sensation are one of the most exciting things about winter walking.

The second kind of winter walking is on a day when the sky is filled with a blanket of cloud (this is called being ‘overcast’).  Unlike the crisp clear blue sky winter walking, overcast winter walking feels mysterious.  The cloud dampens all sounds and makes even your steps sound covert.  Overcast winter walking calls for quiet voices and holds a sense of waiting – will it snow?  You are huddled together with everyone under a winter duvet, but everyone is in their individual world wondering what will happen next.  Even if the temperature is the the same as crisp clear blue sky winter walking, the sensations of seeing, sniffing and breathing are all a little bit attenuated (this means being held back a little bit, or reduced).  This makes it just a little bit easier to go quickly going about your business, as if under the radar, always ready to make a run for home.

found poem, London, autumn 2014 – commentary

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So as you know I have been hesitating on whether to comment on poems or whether to leave them to their own devices.  On the one side is the risk of over-explanation (see ‘on leaving things unsaid‘), on the other is my memory of my sixth form project on metaphysical poetry where the explanations of teacher unlocked meaning and allowed me to take part in the poem in a way I would never have done otherwise.

A reader commented about the London found poem that ‘I don’t understand it but of course understanding isn’t a valid expectation to have’, and this has been resonating in the echo chamber of my mind ever since.  Is it true?  I think understanding is a wonderful thing to have.  Understanding brings illumination, and even though it will always be partial, this brings a powerful sense of connection, and warmth and excitement.

So here I am going to put a little bit about what the poem revealed to me, and why the things I saw in London on that adventure turned out to be in the poem.  Of course, my own understanding is only partial, but maybe it will provide some interesting light.  I will also show where I have changed the poem (in two places) since I originally posted it.

So first of all, I don’t have any agenda in the found poem discovery process.  All I do is be on the alert during my time in the city for fragments of text which stand out for some reason.  Then, when I get home, I let them all sit around until they form themselves into verses.  To be honest, I didn’t really think that the things I’d seen that day in London made a poem.  I felt a bit disappointed and I almost didn’t even embark on the discovery process.  But once I’d written out the bits of text (recorded on my camera), unexpected connections started to emerge.

What struck me straight away is that there is a theme of restlessness, and design, and home.  The theme of design is not a surprise because I was at the design museum, but what came together is the idea for me that our lives are our homes, and that we have a role to play in designing our life-homes.

From this, the verses started to sing to each other.  The first question unsettles us as to whether we have become stuck in a rut.  And then the answers also have that fretful quality.  I have now changed lines three and four around, as I realised that the ‘sheer frustration’ line is an answer to the companion line.

I then loved the mix of very everyday imagery (about the pencils), the idea of story versus limited options, the challenge of designing a home and the emotional power of that, and the fact that are homes-lives are also kinds of monuments of what we value, and the powerful question as to what others might make of our choices.

I was a bit hesitant about allowing the Charity text fragment into the poem; it felt a bit out of place.  But I also quite like the out-of-place things intruding.  Out-of-place things can put the mind into an interesting state of trying to discover a meaning.  So in time this stanza has made me dig.  The meaning that has arisen for me is that it links to our own possible poverty (of meaning, of aspiration) in our lives, and how that allows a dynamic where we need charity (also an old word for love) to connect us to abundance.

The poem then connects the idea of home and meaningfulness to belonging, which is expressed through the words about membership and uniting.  Our actions to address our inner restlessness may also need hard work (engine rooms), courage (bold moves), and experimentation (hop on hop off).  In these verses, the work of life-design is taking shape.

I also hesitated over and then relished the inclusion of the reference to the story of our fall from grace, because it also helps to point to where we may have sewed flimsy ‘clothes’ to cover up the nakedness we feel in our lives.  This question cannot be neatly tidied away, so it leaves a lasting vulnerability within the poem itself.

Before the poem closes, there is an appeal not to lose sight of children in our life designs.  Children embody our shared vulnerability, and this appeal then also calls us not to create lives that fail to acknowledge this.

The close then returns to mystery, to happenstance, along with searching and intentionality, which resonates back to the idea of design.  The first line is lived intensely in the present, emphasising the continuity of the process of life-home creation.  The second line evokes total commitment.

Originally the poem ended with the exhortation ‘Go to it’, but on reflection, it feels too heavy handed to address the reader in this way.  So this has been edited out, and instead the reader can identify with the speaker in the last lines.  Here the ‘you’ is less direct, and the reader then has more freedom to choose to join the speaker in the exploration of ‘everything’.

Since I have understood the poem in this way myself, I have enjoyed the sensation of life-homes being created, amended and adapted, of the importance of our vulnerability and the joy of a ‘hop on hop off’ approach to experimenting with new hobbies, ideas, reading, and so on.  I continue to enjoy the challenge of the first line, which reminds me to keep adventuring, to be brave to explore new things, and to be alert to places where my life-home habits and routines become confining.

reflections on blogging, one month review, ‘discovering more beauty through writing’

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The subtitle to the blog ‘discovering more beauty through writing’ has also been on my mind.  I wrote it without any real reflection; this in itself is important for my work.  Writing is the place where I discover what I think and feel about certain things.  It seems to arrive onto my journal, a screen, a letter and it’s at that point that I find out what is there.  I know there are some people who mull over their work forming it in words in their mind before they write it down, but I’m not made like that.  Now I think of it, it’s like brewing tea (which I also love), I’m aware of phrases swimming about in my head for a certain period of time before they pour out in a writing stream.  I try to stay out of their way, because if too much conscious, analytical me gets in the way, they lose their naturalness.

There are several ways that I am discovering beauty through writing.  I love beauty – in nature, in things, in people, in adventures – and over time I have come to see beauty as a place in which magical things can happen, things like hope, healing, courage, revelation, insight.  In my own writing, I am trying to grow an attitude that sees more beauty in everything, but also to pay attention to particular instances of beauty, almost to amplify it in a world that is so often full of distress.  In addition to this, I have found that sometimes I can write about hard things and discover the beauty in them as I write.  This is because writing brings understanding and meaning, and it is meaning that can make difficult things bearable, and even redeem them and transform them into something full of honour and grace and depth.  For me, this is the true magic of writing.

Finally, knowing that I might want to write at any moment increases my attunement to the present.  It heightens my sensitivity to beauty all around me.  It makes me be on the alert for treasure that I can catch in my writing net and bring home to nourish people with.  It’s so much fun!

recovery

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So it’s getting near to the piano exam, and an important and underrated skill is coming to the fore:

Recovery.

It turns out that despite my own deep desire to avoid mistakes, this is not a realistic goal.  In fact, the more pressure that is put upon my performance to be exquisite, like the concert pianist I watched online, the more likely it is that my fingers will hesitate, trip over themselves and take a tumble.

So as well as practising getting the notes, pace, rhythm, tonality, expression right, I am also practising keeping going when it goes wrong.

I am getting accustomed to the heart-lurch and sense of impending doom, and telling myself this is part of the adventure of performance.

I am getting used to trusting that my fingers will be able to find their way back to harmony and beauty.

I am training my inner monologue not to equate a small stumble with a total collapse of the piece.

I am learning to hop my fingers out of the ditch of the wrong keys and back on the horse of the right keys.

I am realising that by starting at a manageable pace, I am more likely to be able to sustain a polished performance.

I am growing cannier in identifying ‘stepping stones’ where I will be able to regroup if I have a sudden nerve-jangling moment.

I am reminding myself to breathe deeply and be in the present before I set off.

I am noticing that if I look up at the music, if I anticipate a little,  I play better than if I look down at the keys.

I am discovering that mistakes are part of live performance, and it’s how you deal with them that counts.

I am learning how to live.