I loved reading this—an exquisite peek into your inner life and the part that writing has played in it. I have almost always processed my life by writing, but in my case, it has primarily been by letters. However, I, too, discovered blogging around 2007 and have published thousands of posts since then, as well as writing a weekly religion opinion column for many years. Nearly zero remuneration; colossal satisfaction.
Dear Christy, Thanks for reading and commenting on this. I’ve read a number of your columns that were cross-posted to FB, and at the end, often thought, YES!!!! You always write thought-provoking and engaging pieces. How fortunate for people to have had you as their pastor. “Colossal satisfaction” in writing for sure. So much to be processing these days, and writing is friends to both of us in that regard. It’s fun to reconnect after all these decades. Wishing you and your family the best. Your SS piece on skin color was quite moving. For some people, I think it takes personal and poignant stories from someone they know to soften hearts and minds. Let’s keep writing!
Good morning Hal! How are you friend? Very much enjoyed this piece today. Kicked off my morning reading. Is that a picture of your actual notebook and specs? If so, very cool. I hardly ever write longhand any more, when I scribble notes for poems as I go through the day, it is almost always on my phone with frenetic thumbs. Something about motion for me. I heard (have not verified this) that Paul Simon likes to write songs by getting in the car and driving and he had a walkman recorder that he would riff ideas into and beats and melodies.
At any rate, motion is a key to my writing story. As you know, I tend toward a shorter form. I don't have a solid philosophy about this other than that I tend to see life as a sequence of constantly changing frames, and it is all I can do to capture the details of one passing frame as I drift from frame to frame. I have a hunch, that if I am paying attention, I could write as good a poem about one frame as I do another.
Lisa and I are taking a philosophy class together, largely 19th and early 20th century stuff. Text of Existentialism. I am mulling over ideas for a book and am gonna use the term paper in this class as a stepstone to it. This week it was Dostoyevsky and Notes from Underground. I wrote a poem in response to it, as the book idea is based on the notion of polydimensional understanding of a work or a thing, meaning you have to understand a condition from many angles to get a more integrated picture of it. So, for me, that includes poetry about Dostoyevsky.
This occurred to me as I read your piece especially as I got to the tragic middle about the person's fall and paralysis and dreadful hospital experiences. FD (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) writes a pretty dreary analysis of the human experience in Notes from Underground. I don't have a criticism of that per se. He lived in hard times. It is a hard context. As we can see from the tough writing section of your piece and the fall and the aftermath, the fact that there is this brutal element of life is a simple fact.
As I move through this process, I am beginning to think that writing and philosophy and poetry need to be done while we can do them. There are basically two phases of life: Suffering and normal day to day. We have to write and think and orient ourselves as best we can during the normal day to day phase, because the suffering will come and there will be no reason, no cure, no solution, there will only be the mandatory participation in that suffering which cannot be avoided.
The story of the Buddha comes to mind as early in his development, he aligned himself with ascetics who recognized this reality of life, so they prepared for suffering by self-mortification, basically embracing suffering early like jumping into a cold pool on purpose.
He recognized in the midst of his emaciation that this didn't make sense (I think it also helped that as he was fasting, he was brought milk and honey in a bowl and fed by a beautiful girl). Plenty of metaphor there huh?
Anyway, What I am trying to accomplish through a lyric lens is the constant alignment and realignment of my mind, so that I can both live fully in the beauty of the day to day world, and also, as best possible, line myself for the ride through the rapids ahead when, once in the rapids, I will have little to no control of the boat.
I don't really know how else to approach it. All of us who continue to live and don't choose to jump off a bridge, we are all making that choice moment to moment. By are action of continuing to choose living and writing about it, we betray our own position. Life is worth it.
FD also does this, simply by living and writing as he does. Even in Underground, as he depicts the condition of living as misery, he is an unreliable narrator, because he does in fact choose to write, and we all benefit from the read.
Thank you for your thought provoking piece. I have enjoyed responding to it, tangential as my response may be. Cheers. Your friend, Jed
Dear Jed, I so enjoyed savoring your comment. And yes, the photo is of a page from my Commonplace Book. Some of the things I've preserved there are pages or sayings I've cut out from various print sources. Some are longer pieces I have typed and then printed. But much of it is handwritten. (Alas, my hand writing is not as good as it once was.) My thumbs are not very adept at texting, but I have gotten pretty good at voice dictation, so that's my method of choice when an idea takes me by storm away from my computer.
I loved reading about your writing process, and about attending to one frame at a time ... observing it carefully and writing about it. I want to keep the "normal day to day" as long as possible, but I am keenly aware that that won't be forever. For all those years when I was teaching, I didn't think about it much, because I was with wonderful young people every day. And then when I was caregiving, I didn't have time to think about it. Now, I have the time....
But I think you are spot on, saying that by continuing to live and write about it, we are choosing life ... at least for now. But now is what we have, yes?
I really appreciate learning more about how you approach living and writing. It's great to be on this journey together. Your friend, Hal
Thanks for sharing a bit of your writing journey with us, Hal. I am happy to be on the same platform with such a wide variety of writers who write from different perspectives and draw on the richness of their life experiences. I don’t need to rely on Substack for income, either, which provides a great amount of freedom to practice what it is I do. I look forward to reading your future essays. Fine work!
Thanks so much, Paul. That means a lot. I thoroughly enjoy your poems and look forward to reading them when the notifications pop up. Yes, the freedom of not having to rely on SS for income makes a big difference. Glad we are fellow writers!
Hi Hal...thanks for sharing your writing journey. Inspiring.
My writing journey - like my life - started rather bumpy. A challenging (that is being generous) beginning, too complex to attempt to summarize here, first saw the light of day when a poem I wrote in 8th grade was published in the school newspaper:
"God, I believe
But what, why, how
So many questions
I would long to have answered."
And - as you know personally & professionally - that questioning and inquiry led me to my master's and doctorate degrees in family social science.
As they say, "art imitates life." Becoming a family social scientist was my path of inquiry: What is family? led me to investigate various views of family. I learned what "family" was by reading and writing about what I learned from others (i.e., what they said or wrote). Eventually, I could articulate and embrace my own definition of family...I became my own teacher, if you will, and writing (along with reading) have been, and are now, integral to my sense of self and my version(s) of reality.
Two of my greatest writing accomplishments were (are) 1. My dissertation, & 2. My published book of poetry. Both related to (like bread crumbs) the discovery of who I am and why I live, in other words, my purpose.
I write everyday in journals, write weekly toward my next book, write poetry when moved to express some experience that deeply impacts me - and I'm seeking to understand. Writing is, in many ways, a friend. Having been a deeply isolated and cut-off (from familial and friend connections) child, I expressed (and now express) my deepest sense of self in writing.
And...a great benefit of reading other's writing (hello, that's you...) is getting to know another human being in their vulnerability to share their journey.
Dear Jane, I smiled the whole time while reading your comment. Writing can be so powerful, and clearly it has been for you. I can't wait to see your next book! And I love your poem from 8th grade. It's pretty timeless... So glad we are on the journey together!
I loved reading this—an exquisite peek into your inner life and the part that writing has played in it. I have almost always processed my life by writing, but in my case, it has primarily been by letters. However, I, too, discovered blogging around 2007 and have published thousands of posts since then, as well as writing a weekly religion opinion column for many years. Nearly zero remuneration; colossal satisfaction.
Dear Christy, Thanks for reading and commenting on this. I’ve read a number of your columns that were cross-posted to FB, and at the end, often thought, YES!!!! You always write thought-provoking and engaging pieces. How fortunate for people to have had you as their pastor. “Colossal satisfaction” in writing for sure. So much to be processing these days, and writing is friends to both of us in that regard. It’s fun to reconnect after all these decades. Wishing you and your family the best. Your SS piece on skin color was quite moving. For some people, I think it takes personal and poignant stories from someone they know to soften hearts and minds. Let’s keep writing!
Good morning Hal! How are you friend? Very much enjoyed this piece today. Kicked off my morning reading. Is that a picture of your actual notebook and specs? If so, very cool. I hardly ever write longhand any more, when I scribble notes for poems as I go through the day, it is almost always on my phone with frenetic thumbs. Something about motion for me. I heard (have not verified this) that Paul Simon likes to write songs by getting in the car and driving and he had a walkman recorder that he would riff ideas into and beats and melodies.
At any rate, motion is a key to my writing story. As you know, I tend toward a shorter form. I don't have a solid philosophy about this other than that I tend to see life as a sequence of constantly changing frames, and it is all I can do to capture the details of one passing frame as I drift from frame to frame. I have a hunch, that if I am paying attention, I could write as good a poem about one frame as I do another.
Lisa and I are taking a philosophy class together, largely 19th and early 20th century stuff. Text of Existentialism. I am mulling over ideas for a book and am gonna use the term paper in this class as a stepstone to it. This week it was Dostoyevsky and Notes from Underground. I wrote a poem in response to it, as the book idea is based on the notion of polydimensional understanding of a work or a thing, meaning you have to understand a condition from many angles to get a more integrated picture of it. So, for me, that includes poetry about Dostoyevsky.
This occurred to me as I read your piece especially as I got to the tragic middle about the person's fall and paralysis and dreadful hospital experiences. FD (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) writes a pretty dreary analysis of the human experience in Notes from Underground. I don't have a criticism of that per se. He lived in hard times. It is a hard context. As we can see from the tough writing section of your piece and the fall and the aftermath, the fact that there is this brutal element of life is a simple fact.
As I move through this process, I am beginning to think that writing and philosophy and poetry need to be done while we can do them. There are basically two phases of life: Suffering and normal day to day. We have to write and think and orient ourselves as best we can during the normal day to day phase, because the suffering will come and there will be no reason, no cure, no solution, there will only be the mandatory participation in that suffering which cannot be avoided.
The story of the Buddha comes to mind as early in his development, he aligned himself with ascetics who recognized this reality of life, so they prepared for suffering by self-mortification, basically embracing suffering early like jumping into a cold pool on purpose.
He recognized in the midst of his emaciation that this didn't make sense (I think it also helped that as he was fasting, he was brought milk and honey in a bowl and fed by a beautiful girl). Plenty of metaphor there huh?
Anyway, What I am trying to accomplish through a lyric lens is the constant alignment and realignment of my mind, so that I can both live fully in the beauty of the day to day world, and also, as best possible, line myself for the ride through the rapids ahead when, once in the rapids, I will have little to no control of the boat.
I don't really know how else to approach it. All of us who continue to live and don't choose to jump off a bridge, we are all making that choice moment to moment. By are action of continuing to choose living and writing about it, we betray our own position. Life is worth it.
FD also does this, simply by living and writing as he does. Even in Underground, as he depicts the condition of living as misery, he is an unreliable narrator, because he does in fact choose to write, and we all benefit from the read.
Thank you for your thought provoking piece. I have enjoyed responding to it, tangential as my response may be. Cheers. Your friend, Jed
Dear Jed, I so enjoyed savoring your comment. And yes, the photo is of a page from my Commonplace Book. Some of the things I've preserved there are pages or sayings I've cut out from various print sources. Some are longer pieces I have typed and then printed. But much of it is handwritten. (Alas, my hand writing is not as good as it once was.) My thumbs are not very adept at texting, but I have gotten pretty good at voice dictation, so that's my method of choice when an idea takes me by storm away from my computer.
I loved reading about your writing process, and about attending to one frame at a time ... observing it carefully and writing about it. I want to keep the "normal day to day" as long as possible, but I am keenly aware that that won't be forever. For all those years when I was teaching, I didn't think about it much, because I was with wonderful young people every day. And then when I was caregiving, I didn't have time to think about it. Now, I have the time....
But I think you are spot on, saying that by continuing to live and write about it, we are choosing life ... at least for now. But now is what we have, yes?
I really appreciate learning more about how you approach living and writing. It's great to be on this journey together. Your friend, Hal
(and thanks for restacking my piece)
Thank you so much for what you do, Hal. Everything you do.
Thanks Mike -- I so appreciate your comment. I hope you're feeling better and that things are settling in. (sending a DM)
Thanks for sharing a bit of your writing journey with us, Hal. I am happy to be on the same platform with such a wide variety of writers who write from different perspectives and draw on the richness of their life experiences. I don’t need to rely on Substack for income, either, which provides a great amount of freedom to practice what it is I do. I look forward to reading your future essays. Fine work!
Thanks so much, Paul. That means a lot. I thoroughly enjoy your poems and look forward to reading them when the notifications pop up. Yes, the freedom of not having to rely on SS for income makes a big difference. Glad we are fellow writers!
Hi Hal...thanks for sharing your writing journey. Inspiring.
My writing journey - like my life - started rather bumpy. A challenging (that is being generous) beginning, too complex to attempt to summarize here, first saw the light of day when a poem I wrote in 8th grade was published in the school newspaper:
"God, I believe
But what, why, how
So many questions
I would long to have answered."
And - as you know personally & professionally - that questioning and inquiry led me to my master's and doctorate degrees in family social science.
As they say, "art imitates life." Becoming a family social scientist was my path of inquiry: What is family? led me to investigate various views of family. I learned what "family" was by reading and writing about what I learned from others (i.e., what they said or wrote). Eventually, I could articulate and embrace my own definition of family...I became my own teacher, if you will, and writing (along with reading) have been, and are now, integral to my sense of self and my version(s) of reality.
Two of my greatest writing accomplishments were (are) 1. My dissertation, & 2. My published book of poetry. Both related to (like bread crumbs) the discovery of who I am and why I live, in other words, my purpose.
I write everyday in journals, write weekly toward my next book, write poetry when moved to express some experience that deeply impacts me - and I'm seeking to understand. Writing is, in many ways, a friend. Having been a deeply isolated and cut-off (from familial and friend connections) child, I expressed (and now express) my deepest sense of self in writing.
And...a great benefit of reading other's writing (hello, that's you...) is getting to know another human being in their vulnerability to share their journey.
Many blessings, Jane
Dear Jane, I smiled the whole time while reading your comment. Writing can be so powerful, and clearly it has been for you. I can't wait to see your next book! And I love your poem from 8th grade. It's pretty timeless... So glad we are on the journey together!