Self-Titled

Thoughts have a knotty quality to them: they can be problems or solutions. It requires persistence and skill to either untangle them or to form them into something coherent and useful. They can be beautiful, awkward, impossible... And writing is a tool for working with them. And going for a walk can be, too, or maybe just sitting and stirring the coals of a fire: thinking without thinking. (Fire is, of course, profoundly meditative: the play of heat and light and smoke in response to prodding and poking and nudging.)

It was warm today—an excellent Fall day by any standard. As we drove home from an errand this afternoon, we stopped to admire two Sandhill cranes picking their way along the side of the road, scarcely far enough away from our car for social distancing. But they are watchful, observant. It is fascinating how their heads extend out in front of them, probing, then freeze in position while the rest of their body takes a step or two to catch up.

I tried to write in a journal while sitting outside this evening, the journal in my lap. I can’t. My penmanship is abject to begin with, never mind the geometric difficulties of not using a table. I cannot get comfortable, I cannot steady my hand, I cannot possibly make efficient use of the page. I cannot remember with certainty how to spell ‘necessary’ without spellcheck anymore. And it occurs to me that much techno-luxury seems to be sold with the idea of doing things in places you shouldn’t be doing them: taking a phone call in the bath, typing a memo during a massage, planning your next vacation from a hot air balloon ride. I guess there’s something alluring about solving a problem so effortlessly that you can also be partially engaged in recreational activities.

Finishing up that presentation on horseback while enjoying a mint julep, or designing a spaceship while rolling up the garden hose...

Anyway, writing in my journal provided a feedback loop: me holding the pen, pressing against it. The pen pressing against the page, which yields and accepts strokes of blue ink. The blue ink reflecting a bit of lingering sunlight back into my eyes, which are trying to untangle the thoughts pushing on the pen. The pen: a marlinspike for my thoughts. The cranes have amazing, long, sharp beaks—also like marlinspikes. It’s hopeless, but not serious.

Tonight we had warmed-up leftovers in front of a campfire instead of a television, the rapid evening chill on the back of our necks in the absence of the Sun; and the Moon and Venus next to each other, bright white conversationalists against the deep blue twilight. On the opposite side of the spectrum from our campfire and our darkening back yard.

I tried reading Walden once and found Thoreau to be mostly tedious, but I do keep coming back to something that resonates with me:

“I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is well adapted to our weakness as our strength.”

I want to believe this very much.