Beginner's Mind, Pen, and Paper

Experiment, Goldberg commands, with different writing utensils--pens, papers, notebooks, etc.

I love typing on Mac. I love his little keys and how the shell of the laptop feels cool against my skin. I go back to pen and paper, though. I'm not sure if I will ever stop liking the way a good pen feels in my hand.

Experimenting is so fun in theory, but in real life it's hard for me to experiment with much more besides food and music. Maybe I need to experiment more.

The BiG Review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days by Jeff Kinney


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Last night before Witt and I left for Krissy's wedding in Fayetteville, we stopped by Patton Alley Pub. Witt was going to run in for a minute, have a drink, and we were going to drive. I had to get gas, and then pick him up. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, tops. Instead it took nearly two hours, and during that two hours I read Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days between trips around the block. Greg endures a summer of fighting with Rowley, getting and losing his first two pets, a scary movie, a memorable trip to the beach, several trips to the public pool, being blacklisted a country club, and a family birthday party. Funny, funny stuff.

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Introduction

"To do writing practice means to deal ultimately with your whole life" (3).
The last line of this introduction is to "use this book," and so I will. I've always shied away from writing in this or in anything online every day. What if someone reads it? What if no one reads it. The reality is that the area is here whether I use it or not.

The idea of ultimately dealing with my whole life is at once exciting and terrifying. Of course it won't happen all at once and maybe not at all. But maybe I owe it to myself to try.

And so, after trying to find a routine for this, I have decided that I will read (re-read) a vignette from Goldberg's two book volume: Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind and write something each day. Or when I remember or feel like it. I don't know that I can stick to this, but it will be an exercise.

Writing Down the Bones

The past few days I've been trying to read a mini-essay from the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and taking notes about things to write about. Lately I keep thinking about all of the things I need to do instead of doing them. There are four things I want to do each day for myself--read, write, walk, and yoga. Each of them for about twenty minutes (except the writing, which I feel like I can do in less time for some reason), and each of them make me feel better in all kinds of ways when I do them.

When I get up in the morning to do yoga, my head is clearer and I'm calmer. Serene, peaceful. Maybe this feeling of calmness is in my head, but even so, that still means it's real, right?

So, now, I have pages of lists in my notebook that may be translated to this blog or may just stay on the paper. When Goldberg first wrote The Bones she wrote exclusively about paper to pen or pencil, saying that pen to paper is nearly a spiritual process. I know that to be true--but I also wonder if hand to keyboard cannot also awaken the sleeping writer in us. My hands move faster when they type than when they write. So, does my brain move faster or am I trying to keep up?

On my sketchy list of things to write about is the line "our senses by themselves are too dumb" which of course is true. I walk around life trying to feel and remember every feeling and everything, but it is only when I step back that I realize my true thoughts about an issue or an idea or person.

There was a time when I believed that the feeling approach I took was the best or the only approach, but now i realize that it is a choice like most other choices we make about ourselves, even if it is an unconscious one.

Of course writing, and this book, and Natalie Goldberg make me think about Dr. Walker. When we went through her papers a few weeks ago and we found letter after letter of hers from Leslie and some other man. She write these love letters in ways that made me realize I didn't know her much at all. We were given a small slice of her life, and that slice was beautiful, but it was definitely not the only part of her. We were barely a part of her life, but we were there at the end, circled around her and holding her hands. Listening to her breaths move slowly and less rapidly from her body until she was dead. Barely knew her, yet held her as she took her last breath.