The Thursday! Newsletter 2-6: Keep the Conduit Open
Volume 2, Issue 6
Well! Hello! That was quite an event last week, I must say.
We had a bit of a plumbing catastrophe last Wednesday morning, which left our apartment flooded. We have old carpet and we found precious little space -- one square foot underneath my computer desk, in fact -- that wasn't soaked to the point of making puddles in the carpet when you walked over it. Obviously, we couldn't stay in our place and so we hied ourselves to a hotel -- at our expense until our renter's insurance can reimburse us later on -- until everything is set right. At present, we hope to be back home on Friday, though we'll still have a bunch of work still to do putting things back where they belong. We've worked hard -- my wife, especially -- on saving what we could save, dumping the rest, and assessing our condition. We won't lose many very valuable things, thank God. Most of our furniture is okay as are our electronics. But lots of books and papers, pictures, various things we had but that didn't define our lives nor our memories together.
We are, as of today, okay. We could be far, far worse off. We are grateful to the Almighty for his hand in our situation. We are also grateful for those of you who contacted me and left me very kind words, thoughts, and prayers. They mattered. They still matter. Y'all are cool and I'm thankful.
Practically, our sojourn in hotel living has meant I've not been able to publish very much of what I've written. In truth, I've not written a whole lot -- a couple poems and a little scrap of a story in my notebook that I probably won't share because it's all pretty raw and I've had enough sadness for a few days. None of it is anything to which I'd subject you right now either. But, as occasionally happens with life, my struggle to write anything I'd think worth sharing got me thinking about the conduit we humans have between our secret hearts and the world around us.
I have a quote written down, though I can't quite get to it right now, that says something like "An artist's main job is translation". Last week's newsletter dealt a lot with how we translate our experiences with the world into emotions we can convey to other people through our art. What I'd like to do this week is expand just a little on that work of translation. As I've said several times here and elsewhere, an artist isn't a whole lot of good if they don't keep their minds and hearts open to the world. If all you write or draw or sing is what exists inside you, your art will get shallow and thin pretty quickly. We humans are not, all by ourselves, particularly interesting. Our internal dialogues are messy and, quite often, selfish and petty. That's humanity, yes? We require interaction with people who are not us and places that are not all familiar, sights and sounds we do not hear every day, new and interesting and bigger and better and even more noble. We need renewal in our minds and our hearts. We get that renewal from many places, but it doesn't come to us by accident. A poet who shares a stunning verse about the first sunrise after a long hospital stay didn't come across the inspiration by accident. The poet was looking for things -- sights, sounds, smells -- and had a mind primed to collect and experience and translate.
I'm slowly coming around to the notion that what we consider "writer's block" is nothing more than a closed or clogged conduit to the outside world. When we pressure ourselves to produce the sublime, or even just a good turn in a story, we turn our focus inward. We worry about what we can produce, what we can come up with, what truths we can dredge up from inside us, and we get discouraged when we don't find what we want. We dwell on it or brood over it. We criticize ourselves. We seek solace inside a large bag of Doritos and a can of cheese dip then we feel worse about ourselves when we notice the orange streaks we've made on the front of our shirts with our fingers. We can't even eat a pound of Doritos without making a mess of things! What's wrong with us!
Meanwhile, there's an amazing sunset just outside the window. There's an odd shadow that might look sinister if we turned our head just so. There's an owl in the deep woods whose cry sounds like the shriek of a spectra hunter. There's an old lady moving slowly across a parking lot who might be a disguised angel looking for someone -- anyone -- to reward for their attention and care. There is a perfectly dry Creepy Cornfield just waiting.
There is a world of stories and wonder and sorrow and triumph and valor and good and bad and villains and heroes waiting our translation. Keep the conduit open.
Now, I will say that an open conduit is no guarantee of either quality nor control. Most of what I wrote this week involved catastrophe and sadness because that's most of what was in the world around me for a few days. It couldn't be helped. I kept the conduit open and that's what came through. It's all in my notebook because I was simply too tired to apply any fine control to it. I didn't have the brain power necessary to shape any of it into something presentable for you! That's okay, though. It happens to all of us. Life sometimes requires our full energy and attention such that we don't have very much left for our art. Catch what you can catch from your conduit anyhow. You can always look at it later and shape it into something wonderful when you can. You haven't failed in that case just like I didn't fail. That's what artists do sometimes. No worries.
I think that's it for the week. Hopefully, we will be home and reasonably settled before the next Thursday! newsletter, which will come just a few days before Christmas. I'll save all those best wishes until then, okay? Okay. Thank you all again for your kindness and for sticking with me!
- - - - - - - - - - - -
What I Wrote Last Week
Even though I didn't write anything I can link, I did write a bunch of "thank you" notes to wonderful people who looked in on us and helped us out in various ways. Those notes count, right? I'm going to count them.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
One Last Thing
This is where I ask you to help me out. I can't share Thursday! nearly as well as you can so if you know someone who might like what we have here, forward this along or show them the archives.
You can also buy or share my cool book, give it a solid review, or get an autographed copy (ask and I'll tell you how!).
If you're seeing Thursday! for the first time, HI! I'm glad to meet you. If you want more, subscribe right here.
As always, you can always talk back to me by hitting the reply button! I can't promise I'll always answer back, because I'm quite forgetful, but I'll read everything you send.