Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Meanwhile, on the other blog...
I'm working on uploading pix, but it's very slow. My little computer overloads or something and I have to delete stuff to make anything work.
Poets
Saturday 9 May 2009 Grasmere and Brantwood (from my journal)
We visited the poets’ houses. I liked the audio-recordings in the Wordsworth museum of his poems – Ian McKellan reading “The Prelude,” and a reading of Coleridge. “His flashing eyes, his floating hair.” I really like that poem, because I think it taps into primary processes that are recognizable to other human beings, even though it doesn’t make much sense on its own. And the image of the fountain/ river Alph is almost directly a description of dynamic processes (Freud), as well as being a beautiful word picture of the torrents in these hills after the rain. [see the UK blog Hellvelyn hike post for pix of Alph]
Wordsworth had to study upstairs because downstairs was too distracting with domestic matters. Same for me. Those dang domestic distractions!
Ruskin always seems sad to me. But some of that is just because we know his whole story – including the long, drawn-out finale into madness and death. Most casual stories, even “true” stories about real people, end with “they got married and lived happily ever after,” or “he achieved his goals and was a success,” or whatever. But we get old – a long process – and then we die, very often much diminished. How to make one’s death a dignified part of one’s life?
We visited the poets’ houses. I liked the audio-recordings in the Wordsworth museum of his poems – Ian McKellan reading “The Prelude,” and a reading of Coleridge. “His flashing eyes, his floating hair.” I really like that poem, because I think it taps into primary processes that are recognizable to other human beings, even though it doesn’t make much sense on its own. And the image of the fountain/ river Alph is almost directly a description of dynamic processes (Freud), as well as being a beautiful word picture of the torrents in these hills after the rain. [see the UK blog Hellvelyn hike post for pix of Alph]
Wordsworth had to study upstairs because downstairs was too distracting with domestic matters. Same for me. Those dang domestic distractions!
Ruskin always seems sad to me. But some of that is just because we know his whole story – including the long, drawn-out finale into madness and death. Most casual stories, even “true” stories about real people, end with “they got married and lived happily ever after,” or “he achieved his goals and was a success,” or whatever. But we get old – a long process – and then we die, very often much diminished. How to make one’s death a dignified part of one’s life?
Quest (cont.)
4 May 2009 Wastwater (from my journal):
Even thinking about my usual way of thinking about my life is boring. There are things I want to do.
1. Write workable novels regularly. The Claire Rowan Wallace novels will do nicely. This is broken down into smaller parts – like learn how to write every day, or at the very least every other day.
2, I want to make a decent living as a psychologist.
3. I want to get in passable physical condition and be more active.
4. Add family and it becomes the same list as usual.
Making the same list of the same four big goals over and over doesn’t really accomplish anything.
Friday 8 May 2009 Grasmere (from my journal)
My basic wish is to write some great plan which will give me control over and transform my life. But what I do is try to keep up with my life by journal or blog after it happens. As it happens. No, after.
Maybe my quest should be “On Keeping Up With My Life.” Because sometimes it feels like the way I manage my life (as opposed to the way I imagine I run it) is by setting things in motion and then hanging on as best I can. Yet I always feel that if only I could get a good system, I’d have control over it all.
Now I’m suspecting there is a mistake – a meta-mistake – in that assumption, and hanging on for dear life is as good as it gets.
Even thinking about my usual way of thinking about my life is boring. There are things I want to do.
1. Write workable novels regularly. The Claire Rowan Wallace novels will do nicely. This is broken down into smaller parts – like learn how to write every day, or at the very least every other day.
2, I want to make a decent living as a psychologist.
3. I want to get in passable physical condition and be more active.
4. Add family and it becomes the same list as usual.
Making the same list of the same four big goals over and over doesn’t really accomplish anything.
Friday 8 May 2009 Grasmere (from my journal)
My basic wish is to write some great plan which will give me control over and transform my life. But what I do is try to keep up with my life by journal or blog after it happens. As it happens. No, after.
Maybe my quest should be “On Keeping Up With My Life.” Because sometimes it feels like the way I manage my life (as opposed to the way I imagine I run it) is by setting things in motion and then hanging on as best I can. Yet I always feel that if only I could get a good system, I’d have control over it all.
Now I’m suspecting there is a mistake – a meta-mistake – in that assumption, and hanging on for dear life is as good as it gets.
On Being Seen
2 May 2009 Rowardennan (from my journal)
It is interesting to feel myself seen. I don’t like it – it makes me uncomfortable. I’ve chosen work where I’m the see-er, not the seen – in fact the rules explicitly mitigate against being seen – and I like the one-way intimacy inherent in my job.
Most of the group stuff in this program allows me my anonymity still – there is no one more invisible than a middle-aged white woman – unless it is a middle-aged brown woman, I suppose – but because we are so living on top of each other, being seen is inevitable at times. I think that people project their own mom/ grandma/ older woman thing onto me, whatever it happens to be. Sometimes it’s painful when it intersects my own issues.
It is interesting to feel myself seen. I don’t like it – it makes me uncomfortable. I’ve chosen work where I’m the see-er, not the seen – in fact the rules explicitly mitigate against being seen – and I like the one-way intimacy inherent in my job.
Most of the group stuff in this program allows me my anonymity still – there is no one more invisible than a middle-aged white woman – unless it is a middle-aged brown woman, I suppose – but because we are so living on top of each other, being seen is inevitable at times. I think that people project their own mom/ grandma/ older woman thing onto me, whatever it happens to be. Sometimes it’s painful when it intersects my own issues.
Comment on Martyrdom (from the readings for the class)
Quote from RL Stevenson, “An Apology for Idlers:”
“Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must always be two to a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among generous people, received with confusion.”
‘Course it’s easy for me to be critical of martyrs because I am not naturally a martyr myself and I am usually irritated by self-sacrifice in others.
“Pleasures are more beneficial than duties because, like the quality of mercy, they are not strained, and they are twice blest. There must always be two to a kiss, and there may be a score in a jest; but wherever there is an element of sacrifice, the favour is conferred with pain, and, among generous people, received with confusion.”
‘Course it’s easy for me to be critical of martyrs because I am not naturally a martyr myself and I am usually irritated by self-sacrifice in others.
Quest on this Journey
Fri 1 May 2009 Rowardennan, Loch Lomond (from my journal)
I sort of decided on my mission for this trip, after my indeterminate quest last time (2007) for God and death. This time, it’s: how do I live the life I have? I chose this course, I’m on it, but/and often it feels like it takes too much energy, focus, and work – or more than I’m sometimes willing or able to give. I’m happy with my big decisions. I don’t want to change things. But I become tired and unmotivated. Or I don’t enjoy it. Or I quit working as hard as the course requires. Or I become filled with angst or whatever.
Do I really want to go forward with things as they are? If God and death do approach me (and at my age there are always little scares at the MD checkups etc.) I would think my life the best possible and look back on it with a terrible nostalgia. So why don’t I feel the gratitude and enjoyment now? Why wait until the peace and continuity are gone to appreciate them?
One of my problems or characteristics is being easily scattered. Possibly fallout from the constant vigilance I learned with motherhood.
Sat 2 May 2009 Rowardennan (from my journal)
So how to live one’s life – the life one chose – with love, joy, confidence, and energy to the very end? John says, ebb and flow. Mindful downtime, allowing for the scattered focus and diffused responsibility inherent in the structure of my life. Flexibility. Maybe simply planning everything to take twice as long as seems likely at first. My goals now are more process goals than end goals. But what does that mean? How does it change the method?
I think in order not to become completely obsessive/compulsive, I have to write down what I need to do, so I don’t feel I have to hold it all in my brain at once. Maybe I can use the idea of the spiritual creation prior to the physical creation. But don’t get frantic if it doesn’t work. I tend to think about planning too much. On the other hand, it’s way easy to have days, weeks, and years pass with nothing to show for them, not even happy memories.
I sort of decided on my mission for this trip, after my indeterminate quest last time (2007) for God and death. This time, it’s: how do I live the life I have? I chose this course, I’m on it, but/and often it feels like it takes too much energy, focus, and work – or more than I’m sometimes willing or able to give. I’m happy with my big decisions. I don’t want to change things. But I become tired and unmotivated. Or I don’t enjoy it. Or I quit working as hard as the course requires. Or I become filled with angst or whatever.
Do I really want to go forward with things as they are? If God and death do approach me (and at my age there are always little scares at the MD checkups etc.) I would think my life the best possible and look back on it with a terrible nostalgia. So why don’t I feel the gratitude and enjoyment now? Why wait until the peace and continuity are gone to appreciate them?
One of my problems or characteristics is being easily scattered. Possibly fallout from the constant vigilance I learned with motherhood.
Sat 2 May 2009 Rowardennan (from my journal)
So how to live one’s life – the life one chose – with love, joy, confidence, and energy to the very end? John says, ebb and flow. Mindful downtime, allowing for the scattered focus and diffused responsibility inherent in the structure of my life. Flexibility. Maybe simply planning everything to take twice as long as seems likely at first. My goals now are more process goals than end goals. But what does that mean? How does it change the method?
I think in order not to become completely obsessive/compulsive, I have to write down what I need to do, so I don’t feel I have to hold it all in my brain at once. Maybe I can use the idea of the spiritual creation prior to the physical creation. But don’t get frantic if it doesn’t work. I tend to think about planning too much. On the other hand, it’s way easy to have days, weeks, and years pass with nothing to show for them, not even happy memories.
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