Alternately entitled: A Girl Writing; The Pet Goldfinch
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From youth to age we turn to books
in search of our true selves . . .
"When you were young
And your heart was an open book
You used to say live and let live
You know you did
You know you did
You know you did
But if this ever changin' world
In which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die . . ."
~ Paul & Linda McCartney ~
"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep . . ."
~ William Butler Yeats ~
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Steve Almond: "Literature exists to help people know themselves. . . . What I want to argue in this peculiar pint-sized ode is that our favorite novels aren't just books. They are manuals for living. We surrender ourselves to them for the pleasures they provide, and for the lessons they impart" (9, 15, emphasis added).
From his essay:
William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life
[Recommended by Ned; see also Stoner; and Victoria]
Madeleine L'Engle: "Journal entries for those days were earnest. I was reading as many letters of the great wrtiers as I could get hold of, and copying out the things that touched me closely. . . . Chekhov . . . Thoreau . . . Plato . . . Slowly I was learning who I was and who I wanted to be with the help of the great ones who had gone before me" (39 - 41, emphasis added).
From her autobiography:
Two - Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage
Marilynne Robinson: "Why do we need to read poetry? . . . Read it and you'll know why. If you still don't know, read it again. And again. Some of them took the things she said to heart, as she had done once when they were said to her. She was helping them to assume their humanity" (21, emphasis added).
From her novel
Home
So I asked myself: Who were the poets who helped me "assume my humanity"? Which "great ones" had paved the way? When did this process begin and with what authors?
For teen - age booksworms, particularly girls, a typical and time - honored answer might be Jane Austen, or the Bronte sisters. For me, however, it was Taylor Caldwell and Lloyd C. Douglas. Literary or not, these were the authors who inspired a summertime (1970 or so) quest to read if not their complete works, at least all that I could see on the library shelf.
Around the same time, my appreciation of poetry was kindled not by any one matchless poet but by the editor Ted Malone who introduced the selections in his anthology so tenderly that my heart was ready to honor each poem before I even read it. Next (1974 - 1980) came the early soul - searching and consciousness - raising poems of Naomi Shihab Nye; and eventually I gathered "who I was and who I wanted to be" from Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Oliver, Marge Piercy, Walt Whitman, Ernest ~ Sandeen (please see comment below).
When I asked Gerry about the idea of assuming one's humanity through literature, he named Charles Dickens and George Orwell. Unlike Gerry, who answered with no hesitation whatsoever, I confess to a few moments of consternation before settling on Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf as the classic reading - list authors who most significantly provide pleasure, impart wisdom, and profoundly impact my way of understanding the world around me and the world inside my head.
A couple of summer's ago, my friend Don Lynam suggested that we all share our "list of books that have survived multiple purges." So many people posted so many intriguing titles, ranging from classics tried and true to others lesser known, with a generous sprinkling of curious, eccentric, and unique choices! Each item, thoughtfully chosen, had undoubtedly aided the various contributors in the assumption of their humanity.
The titles on my personal list overlapped with many already included in Don's survey, so I added only two: my all - time favorite The Master & Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov; and, on Gerry's behalf, Diary of a Man in Despair by Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen.
In closing, here are a few life - changing, mostly non-fiction "manuals for living" that would survive any purge of mine. If you are in search of life coach advice, try delving into -- or even just skimming -- nearly anything written by . . .
Brian Andreas - poetic cartoonist
Bill Bryson
Paul Collins - Not Even Wrong
Joan Didion - "On Keeping a Notebook" ~ "On Self - Respect" ~
"In Bed: On Migraines"
Andrea Dworkin
Marilyn French - The Women's Room
Stephen Jay Gould
Anne Lamott ~ Turning 60 / 61 / 68 / 70 / Commence
"Age Makes the Miracles . . ." [in comments below}
Alan Parsons - lyricist
Leonard Shlain - The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
Sarah Vowell
Barbara G. Walker - The Skeptical Feminist: Discovering the Virgin, Mother, and Crone
And three plays:
The Fantasticks
Our Town ~ "The Least Important Day"
Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203454156582048&set=a.1133770111909&type=3&theater
ReplyDeleteTo my friend Kathie O'G: Do you remember meeting Mr. & Mrs. Sandeen at ND? They actually attended an English Dept. party at my house in 1985 -- a brush with greatness! Too bad I didn't have the presence of mind to take their photograph or get his autograph. So many of his poems are excellent; I refer to his complete works again and again.
Reply from Kathie: Well, Kitti, this will be a rather different answer than you'd expect, perhaps! I actually took a class with Ernest Sandeen, and it met at his house. You may recall a post I had up about a beloved of mine who was murdered during my first semester as a grad. student at Notre Dame, and in it, I said among the few things I remembered from that entire year, much of which is truly blank, was the immense kindness of faculty and fellow grad. students.
Well, Ernest Sandeen was chief among them. We met at his home for 3 hours once a week, and we'd take a half hour break mid-class for some homemade treat Eileen, his wife, would have prepared for us. When Beansie was murdered, I went home for the funeral and came back to campus for a week or so before heading home again for Thanksgiving. When I got back to South Bend, my housemates told me an older gentleman had walked over to our place to hand-deliver a note he'd written to me.
It was Professor Sandeen. His gentility and deep and abiding kindness to me during that time is a memory I'll always treasure. We talked at some length that week on several occasions about love and loss and who knows what else; he was always very paternal and certainly never more so than then. It always felt as if we had a special bond because of that, though I'm sure all of his students felt special for different reasons. He just had that kind of presence.
But also, your asking me this in this thread is very touching in a different way. I had written and then deleted a note saying today, July 18, was also MY father's birthday! He died in 1991. I deleted it because I thought the thread was more for your family than any interlopers like me. And, well. . .here we are! Thanks for asking!
P.S. to Kathie: "This is one of the best stories ever! Thanks so much for interloping!
And from our friend Laura:
ReplyDeleteDear Kitti,
Especially enjoyed your entries on "To Assume My Humanity" and Kathie O'Gorman's wonderful words about Ernest Sandeen! I remember him so well. Although he was retired when I knew him, I remember being invited to his home for lovely long talks with scholars and poets, and later Paul and I would visit the Sandeens for walks around the yard, a little cooking with Eileen, always wonderful discussions. (Later still we were invited to lunch with Ernest, because Eileen wanted to demonstrate how adept she'd become at managing his feeding tube! The "lunch" lasted one and a half minutes, and we all had a good chuckle about it.)
Kathie's and your memories also prompted me to seek out his books, and I was delighted to find that I had saved one of his letters (always signed Ernest and Eileen) stuck in the Dec. 1986 volume of Poetry magazine he had given me. (He had four poems in that issue and had written a note in it too.) His words move me to tears even now--
Laura
https://dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com/2009/07/not-unworthy.html
ReplyDeleteRE: Paul Collins: https://bookishbeck.wordpress.com/2020/09/08/hay-on-wye-trip-sixpence-house-reread/
ReplyDelete"Age Makes the Miracles Easier to See"
ReplyDeleteAnne Lamott
Every so often, even in heartbreaking times, the soul hears something so true out of the corner of its ear that it perks up, looking around like a meerkat for the source. Mine did this when, decades ago, I read a quote of Albert Einstein’s: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
There are the obvious miracles all around us — love, nature, music, art. We drunks who somehow got sober call this the central miracle of our lives. Some of you have children you were told you couldn’t have. Some of you were sent home to die, years ago. And have you ever seen a grain of sand under a high-powered microscope? It looks like a jewelry store.
But what do we do with the seemingly unmiraculous? For instance, former president Donald Trump is a bit of a stretch for me. How do we see the miracle in the madness of the months since Jan. 6, 2021? Well, we saw that democracy held. It might have gone either way. We here in the colonies rejoiced, in our quiet and fretful ways.
My spirits are regularly flattened by the hardships of the world, of our country and of the people I love, so I find myself turning to the saints: Molly Ivins, for example. Decades ago, she said, “Freedom fighters don’t always win, but they are always right.” When I heard her say this at a benefit for the ACLU, my soul leaped up off its chair.
I spend a lot of time looking out the window. Age has given me this time and intention. I didn’t have so much of either when I was younger. My brain went much faster. There was so much to do, so much need and striving, and I had my trusty clipboard. Now I study the coral-colored abutilon buds right outside our window, little cups that hold the rainwater. Hummingbirds swing by all day to drink, and so it is a treat both for the eyes and for the spirit, for the bird and for the flower.
One of the blessings of age is that most of us get along with ourselves better than when we were young. It is stunning to accept yourself: I am always going to have a womanly butt and now I appreciate it: It’s a nice seat cushion. When my son was young, I hired a teenage girl to help around the house and one day she was folding laundry. She held up a pair of the nice roomy underwear I prefer and said, with wonder, “Do they even make bigger underwear?” That was 25 years and 10 pounds ago — and yes, honey, they do. I’ll show you where to buy them someday. . . .
CONTINUED:
ReplyDelete"Age Makes the Miracles Easier to See"
Anne Lamott
It’s a miracle that Earth exists at all, let alone is populated by humans who came up with antibiotics and Oreos, let alone Scandinavian detective shows. I love this joint a lot of the time. Even our modest local mountain looks majestic to me. Just today I saw beautiful slants of ground near the base that appeared lighter than the main portion, below the fog. They looked as if an artist chiseled them out of the rock, like doors. They said, “Come on over. We will let you in.” That is how I got sober in 1986: People said, “Come on over. We will let you in.” Today the moist sky looked like the inside of an abalone shell.
That we are no one else but our very own selves is a miracle. About one hundred million sperm were released each time your parents made love, and one dogged little guy made you into exactly you, the exact being who woke up again today. Our eyes open, our ears open and, if they don’t work that well, we have devices to help them hear better. Our hearts are beating. Our lungs are bellowing in and out, our diaphragms rising. The muscles release and contract and get us up again. Sometimes we need others to help us. Both are amazing, the strength to rise or the loving help.
One of the hardest aspects of getting old is that time races by like a slot car. I guess everything speeds up when it’s going downhill but still, it’s unnerving. On my grandson’s ninth birthday, I said jovially, “I thought you were six or something.” He said, “I live here! How can you think I’m six?” Then he rolled his eyes and patted me gently. Poor darling Nana.
Age has helped most of us care less about our outsides. Of course, I wish we had known about sunscreen in the ’60s out here underneath the California sun. My inside person is of no particular age and finds the person in the mirror confusing, a computerized version of what young adorable me will look like as an older person.
So twice a year I go to Sephora and announce that I’d like to buy a miracle, and wonderfully, they always have the exact right thing. I use it for a month, and then I put it in the bottom drawer with the other miracles.
The miracle brain pills are in a different drawer, with the kerchiefs. Friends swear they work, but nope, a month later my mind is still perforated like a pie crust poked with a fork and memory slowly leaks out. So into the drawer they go while I walk around the house trying to remember what I was trying to remember.
I like to think that they have organized a nice book club for the kerchiefs and the other bottles of brain pills.
I can still walk the flatter trails of our mountain, where the streams have begun to fill with rainwater, though not enough to actually flow yet. The peace of nature wears down the fear and hatred that arise in me on bad days, until I remember at some point that all we can do is the next right thing. I often remind myself of something the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said that helps me focus: “Don’t let them get you to hate them.” When they do, I lose me, I lose my center and my goodness, which will be needed for the hard work ahead of being older and saving democracy. There’s an incredible reflective herringbone design in the stream of rock and shadow and rock and shadow. I breathe in the cool air. My soul settles.