Daily Archives: April 18, 2009

General

On Order and Clutter

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Spring                   Waning Seed Moon

A garage cleaning morning.  Bringing a bit of order and cleanliness to a space we had neglected for a few years.  Felt good.  The opening of space and organizing clutter appeals to me as long I do it in discrete chunks over time.  In other words, I don’t feel the call to do this kind of thing often.  If you visited my study and computer room, you would know this immediately.  It’s not so much that they’re cluttered in a messy way, but they do have piles of related papers, books and magazines positioned in strategic locations, dependent on some inner navigator that tracks my future needs and tries to place resources, like nuts in the ground, where they will help the next project at the right moment.

Like many a squirrel, I have nuts buried all over these two rooms that I have forgotten.  Every once in a while I discover a particular cache, like the one filled with essays and books related to water, a topic I want to know more about and have the tools to do just that.  Now that I know where I put them.

Where is that collection on humanism during the Renaissance?  I know it’s here somewhere.

Excuse me now, I have to go hunting.

Writing

One More Line

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Spring                      Waning Seed Moon

“Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.” – Bernard Berenson

Friend Mark Odegard called from the Bly conference being held this weekend at the U. of Minnesota. “It’s  heavyweight stuff.  Come on down,”  he said.  Not gonna make it since I have garage cleaning and bee keeping chores today and Wishes for the Sky tomorrow.

The weather has turned cooler, we are 22 degrees off our high of 71 yesterday right now.  There may be some rain on its way, the humidity is up, as is the dewpoint.

One of things that struck me in the Mishima film was a press conference where reporters asked him if he planned to give up writing, “Well,” he said, “I find I have to write one more line.  Then, one more line.”  He paused, “Then one more line.”  A longer pause, “And one more.”  I know how he felt.

I find  writing satisfying at several levels.  It helps me organize my thoughts and assess them.  Writing also helps clarify and name my feelings.  The therapeutic value of this last has come home to me over and over.  Though this may surprise some I also find it satisfying physically.  My skill on the keyboard is one of the few physical acts I perform at a high level of competence. (I’m pretty good with chopsticks, too.)

The keyboard and a white screen quite literally call to me several times a day and I’m finding increasing pressure to get back to long works, novels, for instance, in addition to the shorter essays and thought pieces I do regularly.

One more line.  Then, another.  And another.  Followed by.  Another.