Letters

"We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century, and are making the most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does for its own culture....It is time that villages were universities...."
— Thoreau, Walden (Everyman's Library version, p. 96-97)

Letter from grade school friend yesterday. She called me Pajamas, her old nickname for me. Her handwriting looks astonishingly similar to grades 6/7.

I wrote her back, pulling all the stops: fountain pen, Eaton paper, about 5 stamps of varying values on the envelope: pomegranate, silver coffeepot, teapot, Navajo necklace with turquoise. Feels more like art than using the computer does, for sure.

Back in the old days — which I'm desperately trying to revive in small ways here and there, like letters – this was the way distant friends & I kept touch. Back when I had time. I would put on some music, lay down on the floor or sit at the mechanical typewriter purchased for 3 bucks at a yard sale, and write. Go out to class, or work, or a meal, and come back and write some more. Excerpt a book I liked or was reading at the time. I haven't managed this kind of one-to-one mastery with email yet.

Emerging, Solitude

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.
...
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 13

March 8, 2009
Sunday
Portland, Maine

Both Jeff & I are emerging as writers. I’m totally OK being an emerging writer at 40, nearly 41. At 25, I thought it was lame to get labeled 'emerging writer'. Now, I'm completely fine with it. Fine to be 'emerging' for the next fifty years or so.

Writing poetry requires solitude — a rare commodity these days — but something I actually have right now, for the first time in a long time.
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Ego: Suit? Or straight jacket?