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| Fragrance of Life Catherine Al-Meten Meyers
In the 60s there was a popular British song, What's It All About Alfie?" Believe it was from the soundtrack of a movie out at the time, but the lyrics stayed with me, as lyrics tend to do. The gist of the song, for those who don't remember it, had to do with the meaning of life. There were a lot of popular songs out at the time that dealt with the meaning of life. Another one that was one of my favorites was Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is?. That was pretty depressing, but there have been moments when my expectations far outweighed my actual experience, and this song rose up from my memory. Today it wasn't the lyrics to a song that inspired me, but a line from an interview with a writer, Henry Miller.
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When I was a young girl, Henry Miller's books were infamous in the U.S.. They were said to be full of salacious, pornographic erotica, so of course, I didn't read them. I snuck a look at Peyton Place (small town cheating and sexual exploration) at my parent's friend's house, but never ventured near Miller until I was well into Grandmotherhood. About 10 years ago, I house/cat sat for a friend of my Daughter's in San Francisco. The friend, an artist, had a house full of beautiful and intriguing artwork (sculptures, paintings, collages, mobiles), and very interesting reading material. Among the books i found were some written by Henry Miller. Among those books was Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. I picked it up, not knowing what to expect, and began reading.
It was one of those books I could not put down, nor could I forget it once I'd read it. It was a writer's voice talking about living life--a writer's life. From that book, I went on to read other works of Millers, many which gave an autobiographical glimpse into his life, his writing, who and what influenced him, and what he struggled with. This morning I was reading an excerpt from an interview in the Paris Review of Miller. The interview Miller gave in 1961 was done during the height of his 'overnight' success as a write...30 some years after the book he wrote was finally published in the U.S.. Somewhere midway through the interview, obviously tired of answering predictable and unanswerable questions, he said he following:
"I think these questions are meaningless. What does it matter how long it takes to write a book? If you were to ask that of Simenon, he’d tell you very definitely. I think it takes him from four to seven weeks. He knows that he can count on it. His books have a certain length usually. Then too, he’s one of those rare exceptions, a man who when he says, “Now I’m going to start and write this book,” gives himself to it completely. He barricades himself, he has nothing else to think about or do. Well, my life has never been that way. I’ve got everything else under the sun to do while writing."
Having everything else under the sun to do has always marked my writing career. Whether I was writing papers for some academic pursuit, researching and writing for an article, essay, journal or blog, or trying to find time to write a book I'd been wanting to write for years--life went on around me. And I, like most everyone else, had obligations, responsibilities, and people who depended on me for one thing or another. Even when a baby was sick with a high fever, and I'd been in a bathtub in the middle of the night trying to cool her down, I managed to find time to write.
It was infinitely easier to justify time for writing if I was doing it for a purpose. Purpose being for a class or degree or commitment I'd made. Writing as a way to make a living has never been the main goal I've had. Usually writing has been about satisfying some inner desire to tell a story or getting a set of poems compiled or writing on a topic I felt I needed to express an opinion or provide some kind of guidance. Very often it was putting my ideas for a lecture into written form since I was so much more comfortable with my writing voice than I was with my spoken one. All this changed about 20 years ago.
When I count back, I'm surprised, but the first steps I made toward declaring to myself my intent to write full time was made that long ago. I decided to share a job with a friend, so that I could have the extra time to write. It was a major move for me. My daughter said to me at that time, "You need to have a laptop computer so you can go outside and get out of this office to write." This was when laptops were rather foreign objects and I had no intention of ever possessing one. My response to her was, "Oh that's just not possible." But the seed had been planted. About a year or two later in my first graduate class for my doctoral program, two of the students showed up with their laptops, and annoyed the heck out of me as they click clacked away, staring at their screens as class went on. At that time, I had been using a word processor, and had moved on to a desk top computer, so I did value technology. So my mind began to open up a bit more.
Another major step in the process of admitting I was a writer came after my doctoral program. It happened on my 60th birthday. I was in Connecticut working at a small private Catholic university, and was shopping at Pier One looking for furniture to furnish my tiny little apartment in the attic of an old mansion. There was very little space in the rooms I was staying in. There was however, space for a narrow table at the window. I purchased a glass-topped desk and my friend and administrative assistant struggled together getting the wrought iron base of the desk up the narrow flight of stairs to my apartment. When I put it in my rooms, I vowed to myself that this was my commitment to live the writer's life in earnest. A year or so later, when I moved back to the West Coast, my desk came with me. It has served as a constant reminder of my vow.
In reading Henry Miller's works, I was most fascinated by his life as a young man in Paris, living on next to nothing, walking the streets of Paris, spending time with friends, and writing in his rooms. Life was a struggle, as it often seems to be for most of us. People come in and out of our lives, and we become involved in the drama that makes life what it is. People get sick or we fall ill, and have to deal with physical hardships and limitations or take care of others who do. All this life and drama takes a toll on our lives as artists or writers. Yet it nourishes our art as well. We are the kind of writer we are because of everything that we have been through, accomplished, done, or had to cope with. There is nothing in our lives that cannot feed our art.
As I write today, the dishes have gotten done, the cats have been tended to, business has been taken care of, and plans have been made to join friends later for a walk on the beach. I have yet to eat, and that's taking a toll on my energy levels, but something about writing makes it a kind of urgency that once you have the bug to get something said in writing, you just have to do it. Regardless of the costs sometimes. Irrespective of whether or not you have everyone's approval (that's rare unless you're really successful).Writing is a solo act. It cannot be done, at least I cannot do it, with company. When I was a young girl, there was no privacy in our house, so I learned to sit at the kitchen table, carry on conversations with my Mother, while tuning everything out as I read or wrote. It's a skill I only use now when in a coffee shop or other public place.
My home is my workshop, my studio, my writing place. There are multiple spots around my tiny home where I have set up centers for one kind of writing or art or another. I loved Maria Montessori's idea of space to do different things, and have pretty much my own Montessori house going on here. Today I'm sitting on my bed, my back supported by my sturdy back rest, my cat on the pillow snoring away beside me, and the scope of my life spread out all around me. I have not cut myself off from life; indeed I consider everything equally relevant. Dishes I've used to feed myself or others, have a place, need to be kept clean, and provide me with a bit of colorful joy when I eat. Food while not the center of my life, is necessary, so I try to make it colorful, tasty, healthy, and beautiful. I rarely eat out of habit or routine. Cleaning and rearranging is vital ot my emotional well being, which of course is necessary to my writing and art. So I have my habits. Sweeping, dusting, cleaning, airing out, organizing, and rearranging. All keep me in a state of balance and harmony.
And on my refrigerator on a grease-splattered page with a quotation typed on it, are the words of another writer, John Hersey:
"To be a writer is to sit down at one's desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone--just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again and then again and once more, and over and over."
Not sure that I rewrite as much as Hersey but I do sit down regardless of what's going on, how I feel, or whether I feel I have anything to write or not. And the chill of the morning, is when I usually start, but it is by no means the only time I write. I find time when I think there is none. I think of the young wife and mother, Beverly Cleary who sat at her little kitchen table in the Oakland Hills writing whenever she could. And I remember the choices I've made to have the life I now do, and I am so grateful. Sometimes I wish I'd started earlier, but then I think---everything counts. Whatever I've done or not done, has made me who I am today, and all of it feeds my work.
Recently, I finished and published my first fiction novel. A dream I'd had for year. Something I'd continued to work on in bits and pieces, until a little less than two years ago when I began focusing on it as my main project. This week the first big delivery of the book arrived, and the first reviews from those who have read it start to finish have begun to come in. They are words I'd hoped to hear (Can't put it down. Can't wait for the sequel), but they are not the words that motivated me to write it. The motivation comes from within, from the desire to let the process begin and then to trust that process, and let it flow. It's a wonderful stream I am having to be swimming in. And whatever it is that you have that longing to do, begin it, and keep working on it. Hold onto those dreams and take whatever steps you can to fulfill them. The pleasure is, for me, in the process. Find that pleasure of doing what you love and desire by doing it. Let nothing get in your way. Let your life include the desires; use life to feed them.
If you don't believe me, listen to Henry Miller's voice from his memoir, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch:
“If we are always arriving and departing, it is also
true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination
is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
Let yourself be anchored in the movement of your own process, your own growth, your own life, and to that of the life that nourishes, passes through, and inspires you.
