The Point: A Conversation

 

               I was talking to someone today—about what I can’t recall—when they said something unexpected.

                “What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?”

                “The point of what?” I asked.

                “The point of everything.” They looked away.

                “Well,” I said, chuckling nervously.

                A car sped down the street with purpose. We both watched it.

                “Do you ever feel like you’re on a wave?” they asked. “Not the crest, the peak, not on top of it all, riding along. Below that, under. The smooth, rising part. You’re coasting really, but the violence is just overhead, waiting to crash down and push you under. Annihilation.”

                “Oh,” I said, imagining it. I closed my eyes and saw the blue expanse, smelled the salty air. “At times," I said, "I think I have felt like the swell, before the wave builds.”

                “Yes,” they said, imagining it.

                “The idea,” I said. “The movement.”

                They glanced at the sidewalk, kicked a dried leaf out of the way. “But still, what’s the point?”

                “Every day you find a new one,” I said. “Every week you finish something. Every month you figure something out. Every year you grow.”

                “And then?”

                “You keep going,” I said.

                “Why?”

                “Because we do.”

                They rolled their eyes. “I suppose you’ll say something about love now.”

                “Sure,” I agreed, relieved. “Love. Beauty. Goodness.”

                “The shimmering ocean,” they said. “Impressionistic mountains. Flowering bushes, fresh bread from the oven, a dusting of snow on the edge of a fence.”

                “Art!” I said.

                They shrugged.

                “People too,” I said.

                “Not people,” they said. “People you can’t predict.”

                I hold out my hands, palms up. “You can’t predict the weather either.”

                “In general,” they said, “you can. The seasons. What’s most likely to happen.” They shook their head. “People you never know.”

                I let my hands fall. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

                “It’s not a matter of feeling,” they said.

                Another leaf drifted down from a nearby tree. We watched as it floated to and fro, at times a gentle falling and then, a swift swoop. We listened to the papery sound when it settled onto the pavement.

                “Better you stay alone,” they said.

                “You can’t mean that,” I said, leaning to pick up the leaf. “Can you?”

                But when I straightened up, holding the dried husk in my hand, they had gone. A buzzing in my ears, a cavern in my gut.

                “You,” they whispered. One last rasp of warm, Autumn air.

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Poem for the Weekend: Cecilie Løveid

 

One of the most celebrated writers in modern Norway, Cecilie Løveid writes prose, plays and poetry, but is known as a "genre transgressor." In short, she makes her own way. More information about this writer here.

 

 

THE MORNING WOMAN

 

by Cecilie Løveid

 

There is no doubt that there is a body
inside the music
The music would have made love with her
if it could
don’t you think?
If she were not a woman I mean
if she were music
Would she have made love with him if he weren’t music?
She didn’t throw herself out the window
when the music stopped
The morning woman
waits for the continuation
waits for the music
waits for a sign
Would she really have loved him if he were a man
and not music?
Where shall she find him when the music stops
other than deep inside herself
There where she is
The morning woman

 

MORGENKVINNEN

 

Det er ingen tvil om at det er en kropp
inne i musikken
Musikken ville elsket med henne
hvis den kunne
tror du ikke?
Hvis ikke hun var kvinne mener jeg
hvis hun var musikk
ville hun elsket med ham hvis han ikke var musikk?
Hun kastet seg ikke ut vinduet
da musikken stanset
Morgenkvinnen
venter på fortsettelsen
venter på musikken
venter på et tegn
Ville hun virkelig elsket ham hvis han var en mann
og ikke musikk?
Hvor skal hun finne ham når musikken slutter
annet enn dypt inne i seg selv
Der hvor hun er
Morgenkvinnen

 

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Poem for the Weekend: W.B. Yeats

I had a hard time choosing a poem today; I don't know why. Too many thoughts crowding in, too much to do. So I'll give you this classic, still good after all this time.

When You Are Old

by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

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;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

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Lives of Quiet Desperation

We’ve all seen memes like this circulating social media, encouraging us towards kindness. We’ve read stories about the waitress with a sick child at home, the elderly neighbor who has no visitors, the special needs child excluded from dance class. These nuggets of inspiration and these stories, be they true or not, serve to remind us of our shared humanity. They remind us to take a real look at that person at the gas station, in the park or restaurant, and to imagine what struggles they may be facing, what heavy burdens they might be carrying.

Running is a mostly solitary endeavor and when I’m out on the sidewalks of my neighborhood, most of the people I pass are alone too. I find myself often thinking about a phrase—lives of quiet desperation—and I’ll come home and look for the quote again. It’s from Thoreau, the literary world’s expert on solitariness.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things."                       –Henry David Thoreau

This is, of course, from Walden, Thoreau’s writings about his two-year experiment living in the woods near Walden Pond. His goal: “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.” What Thoreau found, after comparing life in the city to that of the country, was that men were basically the same everywhere. His “quiet desperation” refers to man’s desire to accumulate more and more material things, which requires him to work, worry and want, and to lose touch with not only the natural world but also with any chance for inner freedom.

This seems reasonably argued, but I think the whole idea of a life of quiet desperation can be embraced in a much larger context. In a universal, meme-worthy context. And while empathy is certainly a useful human function, it’s essential for a writer. When I pass an older woman walking, head down, hands shoved in her pockets, I imagine what types of problems await her back at home, behind closed doors. When a driver speeds around a corner, tires squealing, I wonder what drama is about to unfold when he gets where he’s going. What has he forgotten? Whom is he angry with? Whom is he avoiding?

Sometimes this tendency to look for trouble feels pessimistic, even condescending. What if that older woman is perfectly content, basking in some wonderful memory as she walks along? What if the driver is hurrying home to see his newborn daughter? It’s what we do, I guess, we writers. We’re constantly on the lookout for human problems, for people whose lives we can imagine as quietly desperate. Does that make us empathetic or selfish? Insightful or unrealistic? I’m not sure. If Thoreau were alive today, he’d most likely be using terms like centered and presence, and he certainly would be writing about taking time to observe the world around us. Maybe some of us just have a peculiar way of doing that.

"I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.” ---also Thoreau, from Walden

 

 

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Poem for the Weekend: Ronald Stuart Thomas

 

Considered to be one of the most important modern Welsh poets, Ronald Stuart Thomas was an ordained Anglican priest, and much of his poetry reflects his time serving the farming population of rural, rugged Wales. Often compared with Robert Frost, "Thomas is making a universal statement... This pared-down existence, in a land of ruined beauty belonging to the past, is more human than any educated sophistication. Or perhaps one should say, it is more truly symbolic of the human predicament."

You can find more information about Thomas and his life and work here.

A Day In Autumn

by Ronald Stuart Thomas (1913-2000)
 
It will not always be like this,
The air windless, a few last
Leaves adding their decoration
To the trees’ shoulders, braiding the cuffs
Of the boughs with gold; a bird preening

In the lawn’s mirror. Having looked up
From the day’s chores, pause a minute,
Let the mind take its photograph
Of the bright scene, something to wear
Against the heart in the long cold.

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