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A NOTE FROM JEFF:
WRITE INTO THE UNBEARABLE
LIGHTNESS
"Stand back! I've had it with you
all!" Uncle Forrest stood at the end of the Christmas Eve
dinner table and wielded a new electric
carving knife like some drunken samurai.
Whee! Whee! The
tiny motor in the knife case whined as Uncle Forrest sliced
the air above my great-grandfather Papa's bald head. Papa, a
quiet man, pinched his lips and stared straight ahead as his
son-in-law berated everything and everyone, especially his
wife Reesie for drinking too much (too much meaning, I
guess, more than what he had drunk).
I was 13. My parents had just divorced. I had come to Papa's
house as we did every Christmas Eve, only this time I came
with my mother and her new boyfriend Larry. Larry was an
affable if not annoying guy who also boozed his share of
bourbon.
While Uncle Forrest carved up his marriage and his life of
regrets and frustrations, my great-aunts and uncles, my
grandparents, Papa, my mother, and I sat as still as the
dead turkey that awaited Uncle Forrest's new
electric-charged skills.
Whee. Whee. All of us sat still, that is, except for
Larry.
Larry, typically the drunken fool at parties with not much
to lose, slid behind Forrest and made the deft move that
saved us all from the mad butcher's rantings. He unplugged
the knife. Whee-e--ww.
"Here you go, Forrest," Larry said as he proffered his hand,
"Why don't you hand that to me, and you have a seat." For
some reason, Forrest surrendered the new knife that my Aunt
Viola had bought that year from a t.v. offer with the idea,
I'm sure, to give our holiday a little extra zest and good
cheer.
It is of such stuff that family holiday memories are made
on, no? Gravity mingles with levity. Dark gets schnockered
with light. Anger wraps her arms around laughter. It is with
such a spirit that mixes darkness with lightness that many
of us write, too.
As in the Summer MuseLetter, I offered some ideas about
writing into darkness, in this issue - as the days now begin
to stretch wider and wider - that I offer some thoughts on
WRITING INTO LIGHTNESS.
Milan Kundera, author of
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, likely never
levitates. Yet, some of his characters occasionally
experience what in Yoga is called
laghava, a bodily,
existential sensation in which you feel light. Literally.
Borders of the body and skin seem permeable. Where the
body's insides end and the outside begins isn't so distinct.
To experience such transitory lightness can shift how you
encounter the rest of your
gravitas-filled life and writing. The bitterness,
acidity, and depression that whirls in the world around you
might not sweep you up with it. The irritant that once sent
you into raving anger now brushes you like a gnat and
vanishes. You're not emotionally detached. But you're also
not attached and caught up in the swirl.
A few thoughts about WRITING INTO LIGHTNESS
FAMILY
FEUD, FICTION FODDER –
Writer Andrei Codrescu’s father-in-law carries with him a
load of bigotry the size of Texas. For a while, whenever
Joe came to visit and would unleash, in front of his new
Eastern European son-in-law, his rants on communists,
foreigners, and any other group he might site in his scope,
Codrescu admitted he would feel secretly guilty for “taking
notes” in his head about the rich fodder his bigoted
father-in-law was giving him for an essay titled “Joe Stops
By.” So, if the holiday season with your family often turns
into a play written by Edward Albee, step back, breathe, and
“take notes.” Laugh. (Else you’ll be the subject of one of
your relative’s essays!)
LIGHT BITES
– Anger wreaks havoc on the body and imagination. The word
“anger” stems from words related to “strangle” and
“constrict.” Your arteries and heart can only take so much.
So if something ticks you off or outrages you – the Iraq
catastrophe, climate change, liberal fanatics, the neighbor
who shot a coyote in your woods, the neighbor who won’t let
you hunt in his woods—then step back ,breathe, and convert
anger into satire. Done well, satire can help us laugh at
the absurdity of this human comedy.
LAUGHING YOGA
– There is such a practice. It’s big in parts of India and
Asia. Packs of people gather in parks early in the morning.
One person begins a fake hysterical laugh. Soon, someone
else catches the laughing bug, and as if laughing gas
pervaded the air, 50, 100, 500 people cackle, guffaw, and
hee-haw. So this holiday if your sister-in-law starts
dropping in references to their third home in the Virgin
Islands, just start laughing hysterically. Do so with
compassion. Do so so you can get through dinner. And hope
someone else catches the bug with you. And if in your
writing, your writing tone feels too weighted, step back,
breathe, and let out a belly laugh. Write with that levity
in your belly.
FOOLS, ALL OF US
– Listen, we’re all in this play together. Granted, some
people like Larry play the Jester every season, and some
people like Uncle Forrest get a once-in-a-lifetime shot to
offer an unforgettable performance as the Fool. But at some
point, we’re each fools. No judgment there. In tragedies
from Macbeth to King Lear, fools speak the
most wisdom. They have little, but their lives, to lose. So,
if you’re writing memoir or personal essays, and one of the
characters is based on what you think and remember as your
“self,” then note if you’re taking that self just a bit too
seriously. If so, at some point in the writing see that self
with some lightness. Feel that self with some lightness.
Laugh at that self with compassion. Fools, all of us.
A Yoga As Muse
Practice for WRITING INTO LIGHTNESS:
1. Center
yourself. Eyes open or closed, sit quietly on your mat and
take five slow breaths with an awareness on your chest. Let
your belly relax.
2.
Ask yourself,
What am I writing for? (not, Why am I writing?). Listen.
Observe. If an image, word, or phrase surfaces, heed it as a
source that grants your writing deeper purpose.
3.
Then, set an
intention to write into lightness. You might focus on a
particular subject or writing that you’re working on, or you
might stay wide open to whatever surfaces.
4.
With that sense of
deeper purpose and intention to write into lightness, move
into a few Yoga postures. Cat Pose on all fours. Downward
Facing Dog Pose. Triangle Pose. If you can, close your eyes
while in a pose, and sense the lightness around your skin.
Let the breath be slow and smooth. Improvise slow movements
with your arms and hands if you can, and observe the
sensation of air against the skin.
5.
While moving,
observe any images or insights related to your writing or to
lightness that surface.
6.
Then sit again.
Constrict the back of your throat so that your breath
creates a raspy, seashore-like sound (or Darth Vadar-like).
7.
Close your eyes,
place your thumbs in your ears, and place your fingers
lightly over your eyelids. With closed eyes and ears,
breathe five times just tending to the lightness within.
Then on the next five exhalations, hum with closed lips.
This practice will sound as if bees buzz in your brain. Some
people can’t help but laugh with this breathing practice.
8.
If any images or
insights related to your writing or to lightness surface,
heed them.
9.
Then, eyes open or
closed, sit still and breathe very lightly for ten or so
breaths. Let little air come in or out. Observe any images
or insights.
10.
Move from your
center to the page. Write with light breath into whatever
glimmer of an image or insight has surfaced. If you’re
working on a particular piece of writing, write with the
same sense of lightness with which you moved through the
poses.
Observe the
difference. Bear it. Bow out.
-Jeff
Somewhere in
the darkness...
music curls between
the sheets
insects imagine
themselves into spring
a red moon listens to
the madness sprayed on desert floors
the screeches of five
ginny hens crack the air
a man reads beneath a
bare bulb a handwritten note from his son's son
a green-eyed boy
chases a mouse into a stone temple
a woman sends a
digitized photo of herself in lingerie to her husband in
Iraq
an arthritic cat
clutches a black walnut tree like a lover
stillness pretends it
were real
morning's hard edges
snake beneath the leaves
lightning eye lashes
across a field of vision
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