Noise Reduction
quiet reflections on life in a loud worldArchive for Writing
Greetings From A Writing Retreat
Greetings from Marin County, USA. I’m here at a Zen Buddhist retreat center, with the local chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I’ve retreated from home and hearth and am sitting in a Japanese-style room looking out at lush greenery, trying to moderate my coffee intake and discern just what is here for me. Children’s writing is a new world for me; one I entered last fall with enthusiasm and hope not unlike that I brought to adult literary fiction nearly a decade ago. Last October, I wrote a story and sent it out. It was rejected. In April, I sent another story out and it, too, was rejected. Now I’m here, with a slim but very real file of rejections, a laptop, a sketch pad, music, greenery, comfortable clothes, fellow writers and only the faintest clue as to what I want to accomplish over the next couple of days. Enthusiasm and hope are playing hide and go seek and I’m leaning against a tree extending my count beyond fifty, beyond one hundred. Truth is, I don’t feel like seeking them, and in this I feel like a little girl playing with kids much bigger, faster and craftier than she is. Even if I manage to find them, they’ll just get away again. No?
Yet, isn’t that what they say makes one a writer? Persevering despite the rejections, the tedium, the wearing struggle to maintain a firm and authoritative grip on enthusiasm and hope? It’s certainly something I’ve heard often enough.
So, here I go.
Why I Liked Working In Retail
. . . Thoughts on Religion, Reading, Writing
I took the Hobbit to church with me last Sunday. We call it going to say Hi to God, as in: I say, “Time to go say Hi to God.” “Hi to God, Momma?” says the Hobbit. “That’s right,” I say, and off we go.
This time, we were running a little late – the second reading was just beginning as we hurried up the side aisle. We picked a pew – any pew – near to the front, where both of us were less likely to get distracted, and near the music, where the Hobbit is happiest (n.b. singing is the Hobbit’s favorite part of saying Hi to God. He loves to sing ‘ZWA! ZWA! ZWA! ZWA!’ loudly right along with the singers). We were as quiet as we could be, but he is two and a half, so as we slid in, I threw an apologetic smile in the direction of the sole lady sitting at the other end. She didn’t smile back. Oh, well.
So there we were. The second reading was followed by the Gospel Acclamation which was followed by the Gospel, and this is probably a good time for me to admit that even on a good day, (i.e., even when I’m attending by myself, without an exuberantly singing Hobbit), I often have trouble paying sustained attention to the proceedings. Like it or not, I get distracted by the people in church; and by the light coming through the stained-glass windows; by the iconography; and most of all, by the bickering inside my head between thoughts that think that my going to Mass is a good thing, a beautiful thing, a necessary act for me that, like a breathing meditation, simultaneously grounds me and frees me to dwell on the metaphysical; and those thoughts that have nothing nice to say about religion, Mass, priests, stained-glass windows, the smell of pews, the rites, the rituals, the history, the politics, the people who go to Mass, you get the picture. So it was that by the time we got to the Sermon (which, I should add, was delivered by a very small priest who, I can honestly say, bore a striking resemblance to the actor who played Bilbo Baggins, the original Hobbit, in the movie version of Lord of the Rings, and which I found odd), I was a little lost.
Then there was the fact that the priest was talking all about sickness – severe sickness, and science, and the church’s position on science – and I couldn’t figure out why. I looked back at the readings, certain that I had missed something, but there was nothing about sickness or science there. So why was he going on about this? I wondered, and slowly I started to get itchy – emotionally itchy that is – as the cynical-secular train of thoughts picked up steam and spewed all sorts of nastiness about the Catholic Church and its inane positions, mass-market opium, etcetera, etcetera. I heard the What am I doing here? thought, and soon enough I was thinking about that Jewish congregation that the husband (who is Jewish) and I have been talking about visiting. I was feeling the attraction of difference, of newness and the relatively unencumbered experience of the Divine that I tend to have when I attend Jewish services. And then the priest explained: that day at church, he and the other priest would be administering a special Anointing of the Sick for anyone who was severely ill of body, mind or spirit. Ahhhhhhhh, I thought. Of course! The Anointing of the Sick.! And then, What exactly is the Anointing of the Sick? “It is a sacrament,” the priest explained, “which most people associate with priestly visits to dying people.” But people don’t have to be dying to receive it, he went on, just severely ill, as defined by themselves. And this is why he was going on about illness and science – his point was to say that the Church was all for science. That of course severely ill people should make use of all that science has to offer. But that there is a place in healing for God, too.
The priest then invited people to come forward for the Anointing, and then there was a pause. Then, slowly, people started coming forward. I couldn’t quite believe it. There were so many people. People who I never would have guessed were sick. “They’re coming up for a special blessing,” I whispered to the Hobbit, who had slid in close to me, a question on his face. “Saying Hi to God, Momma?” he replied. I nodded, and together we watched. There were old people – I had expected that – but there were young people, too. Men and women. A mom with a daughter. And then two parents with a child about the Hobbit’s age. It was clear from the way they had their hands on him that it was he who was sick. I was moved. Out of nowhere my eyes welled up with tears and I felt an abundance of love and goodwill rising inside of me. I kissed the top of the Hobbit’s head. The unsmiling lady who’d been sitting in our pew was now up near the altar too, waiting with the others for her blessing. It was a quiet, beautiful ritual. There were no promises or proclamations of miracles performed. There was just hope, and faith, and the coming together of strangers – those currently humbled, haunted, worn down by severe illness and those of us who were at that moment well.
The feeling I had then reminded me of a summer job I had a couple of decades ago, at the Gap. It was a job I didn’t like very much, since mostly, I stood around feeling unfashionable as I pointed people in the direction of the t-shirts they were looking for or redirected European tourists to a store that actually sold Levis (Gap and Levis had just had their falling out and technically we weren’t supposed to do this, but who was I to disappoint the travelers?). Once, though, I had the good fortune of helping a customer find a pair of jeans that fit her. Back and forth I went, from the floor to the fitting rooms, with different sizes and styles for her to try on. We became friendly quickly, bonding over insecurities and the difficulties of finding jeans that fit well, and finally she found a pair that looked good. When she left, she was happy, and knowing I had played a role in making her so left me feeling deeply gratified. It was in that moment I realized that the thing – the only thing really – that I liked about working in retail was the opportunity to be friendly to strangers in a relatively anonymous way. I didn’t want to be that lady’s friend. But I loved helping her. Strange as it might sound, it fed me, just like helping people who are lost in cities find their way feeds me and working on a crisis line fed me. I like my friends. I love them. But there is something about kindness between strangers – engaging in it, observing it – that moves me and makes me feel glad to be alive.
Interestingly, I had an experience of being similarly moved just this week while reading a novel written by a good friend (In Dependence, by Sarah Ladipo Manyika). I’d read early drafts, and truth be told, I was nervous to read the final product. What if I didn’t like it? What if I thought it was only okay? What if I thought what she had to say was dull? cliched? inarticulate? It took me a few months just to buy it, and when we met, when we talked about sales, how she was feeling about it, the readings she was giving, etc, I avoided getting personal. Then I went to see her give a reading and all my fears fell by the wayside. She was great and poised and smart and of course I wanted to read her book. I ordered it as soon as I got home and dipped into it the day it arrived.
Wow. What an experience. It was the first finished/published novel by a friend I’d read and really, what an experience. It was like being allowed to gaze inside her mind and her heart, and to see the world through her eyes for a while. This is true of any piece of writing I suppose, and especially of fiction, but to know the person made a difference. To know the shape of the head in which the mind resides and the body that holds the heart – to read the words that she’d worked so hard to assemble in such a way as to have the effect they were having – to exist for a time inside a world she’d created – to get to know the characters that she’d invented and fallen in love with – I felt I was getting to know her hidden self. Her self within the self I have coffee with all the time, the one I can hardly get to know because of how limited our time together is. Too, because hers was a successful novel, drawing me in and causing me to feel for the characters, it helped me recognize anew why I love fiction as much as I do.
So, I guess all that goes to say that I like quiet connections, which is probably not a surprise to anyone visiting my blog called Noise Reduction. Yet, it is not to say that I don’t love the occasional noisy one. Take last Sunday for example, and that unsmiling lady with whom the Hobbit and I shared a pew. After she went for her blessing, she came back to the pew and again sat at her end. Then some singing began and the Hobbit jumped up and started in on his “ZWA ZWA ZWA!s” just as loudly as ever. The lady looked stunned and I almost started to apologize. But then she laughed. And when the Hobbit noticed her laughing, he stopped singing, smiled, walked over and sat down right next to her. “How are you?” he asked her, his big eyes filled with interest. “Happy?”
She smiled and nodded. “Happy,” she said.
Babies and Bonsais
Tuesdays are my babysitting days. At nine o’clock, Ana comes. “Ana bus!” the Hobbit calls her, because when she comes, he gets to take the bus with her out to the library for some story-telling, dancing, singing and bubble-blowing fun. Meanwhile, I have a few hours to myself in which I can engage as an adult with the world. The point is to feel free for a little while, to stimulate my mind and my imagination, to find a little inspiration. So, I go to cafes and people watch and eavesdrop on conversations; I read newspapers or magazines I don’t usually have time for then sit back and process what I’ve just read; I wander in open space – on the beach, in a park, at the zoo – or read a novel, or head downtown to wade through the sea of working people. I buy a hot dog and sit eating it in a sunny spot while watching bike messengers kill time between assignments, professional women walking fast in skirts and running shoes, homeless men and women organizing their possessions in shopping carts or asking passers-by for spare change. I do any of these things and usually, by the end of my babysitting hours, I not only feel more aware of being alive, I also feel ready, excited even, to face the blank page.
Last Tuesday I started my Ana hours with a drive to the beach. It was a spectacularly clear day – the sky was a pale blue, the Pacific was sparkling, the temperature was mild and autumnal – and I thought some sea air might clear my head. A few blocks from the beach though, spotting a large garden center that I’d forgot existed, I changed my plan, pulled over, parked, and went in. (Ah, the spontaneity of the Ana hours!) I’d been thinking about getting some house plants and thought a little interaction with nature, tame as it would be in a garden center, might be refreshing.
Refreshing it was, and enlightening. Especially when I got to the bonsai section. It was a small section, befitting its subject, and when I spotted it, my heart fluttered with excitement. Bonsais! I thought, and I walked over, thinking maybe there was something of destiny in my happening on the garden center that day: I have long loved the tiny beauty of bonsais, and have, on a few occasions, thought of investing in one.
Hoping to find a variety of bonsais to behold, I was a bit confused if not disappointed to find the section contained tools I’d never seen before, and gloves, and seed packets and books. Where are the tiny trees? I wondered. I want to see some tiny trees! Figuring there might be some answer in one of the books, I picked up a guide to bonsai cultivation, and as I began to read, it dawned on me that the idea of walking into a garden center and buying a bonsai was pretty much at odds with the bonsai tradition. Bonsai cultivation is an art, I read. Bonsai cultivation is a centuries-old tradition based on Chinese ideas about the relationship between humans and nature. It is a meditation, a spiritual practice, part of a long, steady journey toward enlightenment. Honestly, it sounded wonderful and rewarding. But pretty quickly, I lost all interest in taking on the practice myself, because as I read about the planting, pruning, fertilizing and repotting of bonsais, I realized that I already have a bonsai of my own: the Hobbit. Every day, I’m cultivating a person. From delivering him into the world, through all those long, long nights in the early days when he’d wake two or three times, I’ve been cultivating him. And the ongoing cultivation – the feeding of him, dressing of him, bathing of him and putting him to bed; the playing with him, reading with him, and laughing with him; the establishment of an environment in which he can grow and become his best self, the introduction of other people into his life, the letting go and the being there with extra care during the harsh winters of his life – has rich rewards. The Hobbit blossoms. I blossom.
So, who knows. Maybe there’s a bonsai or two in my future. But for now, I’m more than satisfied with the challenge of being fully present in my life with the little guy. Especially when I have those Ana hours to balance things out.
August Dispatch
While the hobbit naps, I type. It’s been many weeks since I posted anything to the site and even now I don’t have much to add. I try to write, I do, but most often I end up reading instead. I figure this has to be good in long run. After all, “Read everything” is age-old advice for aspiring writers. But dare I admit here that I don’t even feel like an aspiring writer any more? I feel like a mom, a woman, a human being. An observer of nature – this morning, for example, I watched as my mom’s cat pawed and pawed at the baby squirrel she’d caught. The poor little squirrel was dying slowly, burrowing its head into a pile of fallen leaves, while the cat just kept poking at it – and a consumer of food, the written word, red wine and the Olympics. I just visited the blog sites of several writer friends and even as I felt proud of them and longed for their company, I felt 100% like a nonwriter. Funny thing is though, I felt only moderately upset by this. Mostly I didn’t really care. I like my life at the moment. I’m doing the best I can to participate in the world. I laugh more with the hobbit than I’ve ever laughed in my life. Russia and Georgia are at war, but what can I do about it? I mean, just the other night I saw George Bush and Vladimir Putin sitting three seats away from each other at the opening ceremony of the Olympics, laughing it up together. Surely, if the problem was going to be solved quickly, they could have solved it. No?
But I digress. I just wanted to log in and say hello to anyone who still takes time to visit the site. (blog stats reveal that just yesterday two nice people stopped by) I wanted to say I think about writing all the time and even have a few ideas, I’m just not in a position to compose at the moment. I think my point of view is still a little blurry and my time too limited to filter anything but the essential. The light where I am is so different from the light in London, the horizon so far away, the happenings so new to me. I’d like to write about rural life but I’m not going to be living rurally much longer. In a few weeks I’ll be relocating to San Francisco and maybe then I’ll have more to say. In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to read, I can report that The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon is one darned good and powerful piece of literature.
Seeking: Point-of-View
Mid-thirties, good sense of humor, creative, compassionate, reasonably sure of her place in the world……….
Ho, hum. I had intended to write about my last days in London right up to the morning of my departure. Unfortunately, darn it, life got in the way. Packing took time. Saying goodbyes took time. Sleeping, eating – these thing still had to be done – and, as always, the little hobbit needed looking after. After all, it was not as if the little guy had a clue what it meant to be moving and was sitting around encouraging me to make notes on our life so he could read them when he grows up. No, no. I mean, in the first place, he still doesn’t speak English. But more important, as far as the hobbit was concerned, in those last days, life was going on as it always had. He had stuff to do, and as he was still lacking in the ability to do most of that stuff for very long without falling on his face or into a fit of frustration, he needed my help in doing it.
Now here we are in our new, temporary location in sunny, rural California. We are staying at my parents’ house, which used to be my grandparents’ house. These are my grandparents who used to be in the ranching business, and who have been succeeded in the business by my brother, who lives down the road with his family. A little farther down the road from them is the barn. At the barn are the horses, and the saddles (plus the reins, the ropes, the brushes, the rats, the cats, the bats, etc, etc) as well as the corral where, as a child, I was taught by my grandfather how to climb up onto a fence and onto a horse.
My surroundings could hardly be more different from London. In front of me is a yellow-brown hilly horizon that looks very much like the paw of a giant lion (not that I’ve ever seen a lion, giant or otherwise). The cultivated fields in the valley between the paw and me are alternately green and brown and uniformly rectangular. There’s a two-lane highway out there, too. Highway 156, running east and west, between San Juan Bautista (my temporary home town) and Hollister – populations 1,744 and 35,690, respectively.
Given all this difference, and beauty, you might think I’d be bursting with energy to write. Unfortunately, the fact is just sitting here at the computer is requiring great effort. It’s been three weeks since we arrived, and in that time I’ve written next to nothing. This is not for lack of effort I’ll say in my defense. Probably every other day I’ve tried in some way to put thoughts on paper or on screen. But all I’ve managed is a lot of false starts, a few quasi-compelling titles and some scribbles that are about as comprehensible as the ones the hobbit has taken to making on just about any surface he can find. (The most recent victim = the edge of the tub in my bathroom. Doh!)
Wanting to make some lemonade out of these writing lemons, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about this particular block and its possible causes. I’ve stared out at the lion’s paw from the bench on my parents’ deck, sat behind the wheel of the car in various strip-mall parking lots, let half my brain go a’wandering while the hobbit and I strolled through what little there is of San Juan, and lo and behold, after all that thinking, I believe I can safely say I’ve got some lemonade. In other words, I’ve realized what the problem is and the problem is this: I’ve lost my point-of-view, darn it. I’ve become like one of those winter-scene shake toys after it’s been shaken. My identity has been undone and all the little bits of me are colliding with each other, causing confusion. I’m a mom living with my parents in the place where I spent my childhood summers. I’m a sister trying to catch up with siblings who have been living their day-to-day lives without me for four and a half years. I’m a loner who’s suddenly surrounded by people. I’m a writer who’s not writing. I’m a city kid living in the country. A Californian who actually enjoyed the London weather. I’m a mess, really. A right disaster. Yikes.
In writing circles, particularly fiction writing circles, we spend a lot of time talking about point-of-view. We usually refer to it as “POV,” and we do things like question a writer’s chosen POV, find fault with her sloppy POV shifts or his inconsistent POV. We talk about omniscient POV, first-person POV, third person distant, third person close. I’ve talked about these things. Often, confidently, perhaps even pedantically. But, honestly, it is only in the last few weeks that I’ve really begun to understand, I mean REALLY understand, the significance and the power of POV, because it’s been in my life, not in my stories, that my POV has been murky. This has been no exercise. This has been day after day of waking up and not knowing what to do other than look after the hobbit. Afternoon after afternoon of feeling lost. Evening after evening of looking back over my day and wondering how I managed to do so little and remember even less. I’ve come to understand that a clear point-of-view is no less important for an ordinary person trying to live a life as for a narrator trying to tell a story. Just as it is impossible to tell a good story if you’re not sure of your take on the events, it is impossible to feel fully engaged in life if you are not sure of how you relate to the world around you. If your identity is in bits. If you feel more liquid than solid. Truth be told, I remember feeling this way when I moved to London. I remember a day when I was asked to sign for a credit card transaction and could not for the life of me remember how to sign my name. No exaggeration. I was paralyzed. I had lost a sense of who I was, of where I began and where I ended. I was a blur to myself then and I’m a blur to myself now.
The good news for me is that in realizing this, I discovered my current point of view, and in discovering it, I was able to write this little bit. Thank goodness.
Sweeping Insights
Some of you are familiar with the hobbit’s love of sweeping. However, some of you might not be, so I will tell you outright: my son, AKA the hobbit, loves sweeping. He’s loved it most of his little life and as far as I can tell, sweeping’s only rival for his heart is “talking” on the “phone” (where talking = babbling enthusiastically and uttering the occasional “umm” and “bye”; and phone = anything that can be held up to the ear (e.g., mobile phones, cordless phones, fisher price phones, refrigerator magnets, ipods, pieces of chocolate, clothes, stuffed animals…) I don’t know where he picked up his phone habit, since, as friends and family will attest, I am not much of a user, and the husband, well, he does most of his telephone communication at the office. However, I am pretty sure he got the sweeping habit from me since, as it happens, the hobbit and the husband have a crumb-dropping habit in common. But I don’t love it. Not like he does.
Take the other day for example. It was a gorgeous spring day, with a blue sky, warm sunshine, chirping birds, delicate blossoms – the works. So, I was not surprised when, arriving to pick up the hobbit at nursery, I found all the children playing outside in the yard. I could hear the happy laughter, squeals and squawks even before I turned the last corner into the lane, and it was all so cheerful I started to feel quite happy myself. As I approached, I sought my hobbit among the twenty or so little people running around the yard, talking to each other, talking to themselves, laughing, skipping, and so on. Was he running with that group? No. Skipping with those? No. Swinging on the gate? No. Hiding under the picnic table? No. Bobbing up and down on the little seesaw they have there? No. Clinging to the trousers of a teacher? No. Wandering around lost and wondering when his beloved mommy was going to arrive?
No.
Sweeping?
Sweeping! Of course! Just as I started to take a second look over the scene, there was a break in the crowd and at last I saw him: my little hobbit, contentedly but with great focus, sitting in the middle of all the chaos, sweeping the ground with a dust broom. Crazy baby!
I thought of this story this morning as I read about the latest crisis news coming out of the U.S. – about the grounding of hundreds of airplanes after 8 failed FAA inspections. Or, hang on, maybe it was that other crisis news coming out of the U.S. – about the collapse of the lending industry? Or, no, it must have been the news about that other crisis – about Iraq? No? Or that absurd letter I got from the IRS the other day, describing Bush’s Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which, as far as I can tell, is predicated on the notion that the best thing that Americans, many of whom are actually in debt, actually at risk of losing their houses, and/or actually at risk of losing their jobs, can do for their country is…spend more money.
No?
Well, anyway, something made me think back to the sight of my hobbit sitting there so contentedly, but what I couldn’t and still can’t decide is whether his sweeping was an instructive demonstration of how to keep one’s head in difficult times or a frighteningly accurate enactment of George W. Bush’s unique leadership style.
Anyone?
Focused on Fiction
This Is A Hard Hat Area
Sorry, had another story deadline today so blog is on back burner. With any luck, that means the post will be that much more interesting and subtle when it’s finished. Should be up tomorrow or Sunday.
Until then, cheers.
Otherwise Occupied
I suppose this is another one of those weeks in which things would have turned out different if I’d had a boss breathing down my neck. Instead, all is still up to me, so things have turned out just as they have. In other words, I’ve not got much for the blog this week, since I spent most of it finishing a draft of a short story I was due to submit to my writing group for feedback. It was the first fiction writing I’ve done since boxing up my novel, and challenging though it was in moments, overall, doing the work was a pure delight. I was so happy to escape into story land and forget the world around me, with all its muddiness and murkiness, its cruelties and confusion. I was so happy passing hours wandering through a world of my own creation, and hanging out with characters who are caring and funny and kind, and perhaps most satisfying of all, refining and refining again my word and phrasing choices. I really do love writing. It is incredibly lonely at times, and in material terms, desperately unrewarding; but, more than any other activity I have ever undertaken, writing offers me chances to feel truly free, transcendentally focused, and, from my fingertips to my innermost being, at peace. The only other activities that come close to affecting me this way are reading beautifully written stories and spending time with the Hobbit, who, thankfully, is still too tiny to be affected by life’s muddiness etc.
So, with any luck, the group’s feedback will enable me to put the final touches on the story and post it here soon. In the meantime, I’m going to spend a little time reading, a lot of time with the lovable Hobbit, and whatever time there is leftover doing my best to live well. Thanks for stopping by. Sorry to have been so brief.
Happiness Anyone?
When I was twelve-going-on-thirteen, my teacher assigned each student the task of producing an entire record album (minus the vinyl and the music). We were to write the lyrics to ten songs, then design and produce the interior sleeve, the album label and the cover. The songs could be about any subject, but, since these were the days of theme albums, a theme was encouraged.
I loved this project. I got totally into it. I was very serious about poetry at that age, and I was excited to have an excuse to do “research” in my older sister’s room, where she kept her extensive record collection. Unfortunately, I don’t have the finished product any more, but I do remember certain details vividly, and the one most relevant to this post is my chosen theme, which was… ahem… Death. Yup. Free to choose any theme life offered, I chose to write ten songs about Death, including one about abortion and one about suicide. (And people think today’s teens are in trouble.) I can’t remember the other eight and honestly, at this moment, I’m not sure I want to. (Honestly, at this moment, I am stunned, not only that there were eight more, but also that my teacher didn’t convene some kind of crisis intervention on my behalf. But that’s another matter.) For the cover, I spray-painted cardboard all black except for a white triangle in the middle, and for the interior sleeve I went, surprise, surprise, with all white, handwriting the lyrics to my masterpieces exclusively in lower-case letters, in black ink of course. Yowza.
This uplifting album of mine came to mind recently when I read an essay by Tracy Chevalier about her “dispiriting” experience judging short stories for the Bridport Prize this year. Underlying the themes of many of them, she wrote, was “a persistent attempt to make sense of death.” She reflected:
It’s not surprising, I think: writers often use stories to work through subjects they don’t understand and are struggling with… In this age of all information all of the time, death continues to be the great unexplained event that happens to everyone. No wonder we write about it so much.
Fair enough, I thought at the time; but as the weeks have gone by, I’ve wondered: what about happiness? Happiness is a great, unexplained mystery, no? I suppose it’s not an event, but it is an experience, and maybe I’m off my rocker here, but I do think it happens to everyone, even the most miserable person, at least once, in some small way. Moreover, happiness is an almost universally desired state. The pursuit of it is acknowledged as an inalienable right in the U.S. Declaration of Independence for God sakes, and it ranks right up there with Life and Liberty. Surely happiness – both its absence and its presence – is an essential element of being human. So why aren’t book shops bursting with happy stories?
It could be simply that Chevalier is wrong. Indeed, in my experience, most writers aren’t using writing to understand those subjects with which we struggle, but struggling with writing to articulate just what it is we know. Given this, and the fairly well-established fact that most writers are miserable so-and-sos – recluses, for example, or people who stick their heads in ovens, drink themselves to death, wade into rising rivers or simply pass days, weeks, months, years doing battle with depression – and it is perhaps not so surprising that most stories are a little gloomy. In other words, maybe writers just don’t know enough about happiness to write convincingly about it.
Another thought is that happiness is a bit like magic, and that when it comes right down to it, writers are a little afraid of it. Maybe we are a little superstitious, or maybe we shy away from happiness because we sense that writing about it might diminish it in some way, as if happiness is like a balloon – probe it and it just might pop, or like a joke – explain it and watch how quickly it falls flat.
Maybe happiness lacks the dramatic tension that writing demands.
Or, perhaps, the lack of happiness in literature has something to do with a reluctance in writers to stir up envy or come off as smug.
There is definitely the fact that writing about happiness without becoming saccharine, trite, sentimental, is downright difficult.
There is also the fact that writing, like reading, is a very private, very quiet act, and so lends itself especially well to exploring experiences and emotions that embarrass, humble, hurt, perplex and worry us – emotions and experiences that is, which most people would prefer to explore in private. I, for one, enjoy sad stories, and I think it is primarily for this reason. There is so much room for feeling in the reading space, and so much safety. Also, as a reader, you can take strong emotions on board at your own pace, pausing when things get too heavy then plunging in again when you feel ready. Happiness however, is a public affair. A vibrant affair. It is like eating, an experience that is almost always richer and more satisfying when shared. Happiness lends itself well to dance, film, music. Happiness demands movement, sound and color.
However, with all that noted, I am happy to also observe that many writers are capable of writing about happiness. For example, the most memorable happy scene I’ve ever read takes place in Anna Karenina (a story hardly known for happiness, I know). The scene occurs about a third of the way through the novel (Part IV, Chapter XIII, in case you are interested), when Levin and Kitty at last are able to admit to each other that they are in love. They are at a party, and they use chalk to write private notes to each other in code. It is very sweet, and, as a way of making up for my preteen album of gloom, I’ve decided to offer just a bit of it as the end of this post -
He seized the chalk with his tense, trembling fingers and, breaking it, wrote the initial letters of the following: “I have nothing to forgive and forget, I have never stopped loving you.”
She glanced at him, the smile staying on her lips.
“I understand,” she said in a whisper.
He sat down and wrote a long phrase. She understood everything and, without asking him if she was right, took the chalk and replied at once.
For a long time he could not understand what she had written and kept glancing in her eyes. A darkening came over him from happiness. He simply could not pick out the words she had in mind; but in her lovely eyes shining with happiness he understood everything he needed to know! And he wrote three letters…
In their conversation everything had been said – that she loved him, that she would tell her father and mother, that he would come tomorrow in the morning.
Ah, love.
