Well, that’s behind us. Sure, it’ll take some time for the scars of 2020 to heal, and we may have rough days aplenty still to come. But I think the overall mood going into this year is more hopeful than hopeless.
There are 365 new sunrises, 365 new sunsets. There are 8,760 hours that we get to make the most of, trying our best after a year that tested us to new extremes.
“Dead yesterdays and unborn tomorrows, why fret about it, if today be sweet.” – Omar Khayyám.
Nearly two years ago, I think, I came across the saying “You are the average of your five closest friends.” At the time I started thinking about how, if you spend enough time with an author, you begin to picking up certain habits through what you’re reading.
Just yesterday, I read a quote in Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith & Art: “I was taught in college how to footnote, how to give credit where credit is due, and in the accepted, scholarly way. But most of the writers I want to quote in this book are writers whose words I’ve copied down in a big, brown, Mexican notebook, what is called a commonplace book. I copy down words and thoughts upon which I want to meditate, and footnoting is not my purpose; this is a devotional, not a scholarly notebook. I’ve been keeping it for any years, and turn to it for help in prayer, in understanding. All I’m looking for in it is meaning, meaning which will help me to live life lovingly, and I am only now beginning to see the usefulness of noting book title and page, rather than simply jotting down, ‘Francis of Assisi.’ “
Whether I’d heard the term commonplace book before, I couldn’t honestly say. Something about it seemed familiar, beyond the fact that I’ve been rather unintentionally doing it for years. Another bit of wisdom came from some writer, though at the moment the who escapes me. The quote was something along the lines of, “when reading a book, if you find a passage that stands out write it down yourself.”
I was reading On the Road at the time maybe my second attempt at getting through the book. And the line I wrote down had to do with “the ones who burn.” This was backstage at a theatre, circa 2012. It’s amazing which things stand out to you, and goes to show you the strength of writing out the passages that resonate with you.
So, in L’Engle’s words, I found a sort of codification of what I’d been thinking about, on and off, for two years. It was a renewal, of a sort, and gave me an added impetus to go through years of notebooks where I’ve scribbled and copied, perhaps transferring from many books to one – a commonplace book.
The compiled thoughts of others are something that can be absorbed into your daily life, adding to the collection of voices you listen to and collaborate with. This serves to raise your average, as if adding a well-educated friend to your inner circle.
There are a though and little things that divert our attention each day. Some are small, some large. Some mean something more than they appear, and others are just what they seem.
In the end, we can only complete what start. Only find value in that which matters to us. And only hope to accomplish a few things each day in a world where everyone else as well is facing their own daily challenges.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
In what may be one of the most complicated casualties of 2020, civil discourse in this country has taken a hit such that few could have foreseen. Returning to a world where communication and discussion between opposing viewpoints seems like little more than pipe dreams now.
Yet, it’s been known to happen. In 1971 Durham, NC, the forced association between Ann Atwater, a black activist, and C.P. Ellis, a Ku Klux Klan leader, turned into a lifelong friendship, documented in the The Best of Enemies book, play, and film, as one example.
We tend to be more understanding of friends, and friendships can grow out of conversations. But when we remain insular, it’s nearly impossible to discuss without becoming aggressive.
So, one more thing to think about going into 2021. Civility in social life.
The sun crested the eastern sky sometime around six this morning. Its early luster shined onto water, grass, rock, flowers, and trees. Men and women waking to its rays, or to various alarm clocks, all experience the same waking sensations.
Do we need to know that the reason the sun does what it does because we, as residents of this space-rock, rotate around an axis that causes half the globe to face light and the other half to face a dark, spatial vastness?
No, probably not. But we like to know. We have a thirst for exploring the unknown. That’s part of what makes life so exciting.
Needless to say, it’s been different. Perhaps this Christmas only passingly resembles christmases past, in an interesting, jaded sense of commercialism. But there is so much missing that it’s hard to recognize the holidays.
What’s really absent is community. From its humble beginnings in winters of thousands of years ago, it’s been about people gathering together. And that’s just something we cannot do right now.
So, hopefully it was a safe Christmas. And a warm Christmas. And something that, come next year, will resemble more of outlier than norm.
Don’t attack it. You can’t attack a creative work and expect it to come to fruition. It isn’t about assaulting the keyboard or the canvas. It’s a different kind of process.
Ideas gestate, then become flesh through tenacity and understanding. There is little room for assault when it comes to birthing a creative endeavor.
The battle is really between you and yourself, not the creative idea. The idea wants to be born. Wants to come to light. The only obstacle is your own fear over whether or not it’s any good,
But, don’t fret. Good or not, get it out there. It’s better to do and fail than to never do at all.
Michael's Musings 