Mary Gaitskill on Writing

Writing is technologically primitive—it’s black-and-white words on a page. But if somebody is good at it, these black-and-white symbols can shock or anger or bring a reader to tears. And all this comes from some person sitting alone in a room. Something written a hundred years ago can be instantly alive in the reader right now...

Writing is less physical than dancing, say, but nonetheless comes from the body and not only the mind. A lot of modern fiction feels grossly disembodied. It’s important to connect to the physical, bodily energy of telling a story.

Post-Street Yoga Teacher Training

The Street Yoga Teacher Training wrapped up late Sunday afternoon. First thing in the morning, we were given a beautiful back care and pranayama class by Chandra, a skilled teacher and a member of Street Yoga's Board of Directors. Our discussion, for most of the day, revolved around Boundaries - emotional, physical, and psychological. We also used role playing to explore the many layers of youth social services and to get an idea of how the young men and women in any given Street Yoga class have been shuffled around from shelter to shelter, foster home to foster home, social worker to social worker, hospital to street, again and again. We also hashed out boundary scenarios and designed custom classes for specific populations: the chronically ill, pregnant women, obese people, hyperactive kids, etc. The training came to an end with all the teachers and students in a big circle, giving thanks and celebrating each other. 

The next several steps: observe a class at a site of my choosing. Decide upon the specific population I would be interested in working with. Educate myself further about that population's needs. Select a site of interest in which to volunteer. Make a long-term commitment to teaching there.


In other news: organic rolled oats cooked with chopped up apricots and dates is delicious.

Also:


Big Green Smoothie


5-6 leaves of kale
5-6 leaves of lettuce
2-3 carrots
1/2 Granny Smith apple
1/2 tbsp. organic apple butter
1/2 tbsp. organic almond butter
1/2 tbsp. hemp seed oil
Ginger root
1 c. water 
Ice, if desired

This smoothie can come out a little thick, so add water as needed. It's really yummy and energizing, with tons of raw, unadulterated vitamins, minerals and protein. The apple butter sweetens, the ginger spices, and the almond butter/hemp seed oil strengthen the whole concoction.

Street Yoga, Day 2

Another truly fantastic, long and full day of Street Yoga teacher training. By the time we disbanded at 3:30 pm I was brimming with the good energy of my classmates, and it seems as though the weight of the entire day has been carried through on that wave of exuberance. I received a call from my landlord earlier today with the news that I don't have to move on May 1st, which puts an end to a rather stressful housing search. I also learned that I might have landed a much desired job as a reporter's assistant. It's possible that this announcement is a big jinx, but I'll take my chances. I have a good feeling. And, the weather is better everyday, and my spring cleanse is definitely improving my mental, emotional, and physical clarity.

Back to Street Yoga:

We began with a 30 minute yoga session designed for high-energy teenagers. The volunteer teachers were isolated from the rest of the group while we were given fairly specific instructions on how to make the class nearly impossible to teach by playing various adolescent roles: gossipers, hecklers, restless wanderers, eye-rollers, etc. Although I was too shy to take on a particular part in the chaos, nearly all of my attempts to pay attention were thwarted by my constant laughter. We went on to discuss poses and sequences that would help nearly any group of underserved, underprivileged youth feel safe and respected. This exercise required intensive consideration: we had to examine how certain poses could possibly cause students to feel vulnerable or threatened. I found this to be challenging, since there are numerous poses which I would imagine to be empowering and uplifting for those who have been disempowered, disenfranchised, and dehumanized, and yet many of those poses are not appropriate for individuals who have endured physical, emotional, and/or psychological trauma. 

After lunch, we experimented with a 15 minute yoga session for low-energy teenagers: young folks who are depressed, bored, anxious, detached, recovering from substance/alcohol use the night before, or currently using some kind of depressant. Somehow this class turned into a raucous carnival, as well, even though the scenario was supposed to demonstrate the opposite  circumstance of the morning's high-energy class. It was after that class that we really got to the challenges inherent in this scenario: how to respond to those who are withdrawn or disruptive, and how to respond to those who are trying in earnest to experience what the teacher has to offer. The entire day was a thorough and extremely informative process of putting theory into pseudo-action, spiked with theater games and movement play.

It's nearly 9 pm and I'm still buzzing.

Street Yoga

Last night I took part in the first session of this weekend's Street Yoga training. 3.5 hours, roughly 50 trainees, 3 teachers, yoga mats, manuals, bare feet, and big hearts. Street Yoga is an organization that offers yoga to at-risk and homeless youth. The training is for anyone who would like to join Street Yoga and work with children and teens of this particular demographic, but the training can also be used by anyone who would like to teach specific populations: HIV/AIDS patients, cancer patients, sexually abused teens, domestic violence victims, incarcerated peoples, etc.

The training continues today and wraps up tomorrow. By the end of it, I'll have spent a total of 16 hours with some of the most amazing people I've met here in Portland. Last night we did lots of inward searching, bonding exercises: introductions, one-on-one interviews, walking around with our eyes closed and our hands searching for other hands. I learned from people who are trying to integrate yoga with autism therapies and speech pathology work, people who are interested in making yoga more appealing and more accessible to communities of color, people who would like to introduce yoga to severely emotionally disturbed teenagers, people who want to teach sexually abused women how to drop down into their bodies and work through moments of intense fragmentation, people who want to bring yoga into the public school system, and people who simply want to learn more about community service and deepen their own practice. One of the instructors, Sweethome, kept reminding us that the practice of yoga must truly serve each individual practitioner in order for that service to move outward.

I too had to explain why I had decided to take the training (I'm on a work-study scholarship), and the first things that came to mind were: Healing and Lacan. The two don't normally align for me. And no, I didn't whip out Lacan to this group of warmhearted, sweet-faced strangers. I said, instead, Healing and Language. I talked a little bit about my questions around Healing: what does that mean for different people, what does it look like, and is it possible? Then I spoke about my interested in Language, how Language can help facilitate the healing process, but particularly how Language is also limited in conveying things that have been held in the body and cannot be accessed fully or truthfully with words, and how the practice of yoga may provide a powerful vehicle for listening to the body and unlocking those points of containment. It felt a little blasphemous, but it felt right. 

I feel such gratitude for this teacher training opportunity. Every time someone  in that room opens their mouth I am humbled and inspired. I am so excited for what today and tomorrow have in store, not to mention what I'll be able to do with this information and these ideas once the training is 'complete.' 

One of the things that really struck me as an incredible image: the president of Street Yoga is one of the teachers, and he was leading us in a chaos/stillness exercise about midway through the session. We were asked to wiggle our fingers, then rotate our wrists, then rotate the forearm, then spiral the entire arm, all gradually and with intention. He said that when his young son woke up from a two-week coma after falling from a tree, the boy's arm did this very motion: it began with the fingers, then the wrist, then the forearm, then the entire arm. Spiraling. Involuntarily. The symbol for life force energy is the spiral. The spiraling signaled the revival of his conscious body.

I am reading The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey on the heels of finishing The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Roy's novel has not loosened its grip on me, and I still cannot understand why it took me so long to read it. I'm not referring to the length of time it took between beginning and completing the book, I'm talking about the time it took for me to actually select the book from the proverbial shelf and crack it open. It is so gorgeous and devastating, and if you try to explain this to anyone who hasn't read it, if you even try to break down the generalities of it (characters, themes, events), it ends up sounding like a soap opera. Which is absolutely not the case. It is the furthest thing from a soap opera. But it feels big, epic, loud in its insight and intelligence. This is is why I love literature, why I feel devoted to it: it reminds you of how small you are. For example, as I was sitting on the cushy leather couch in my analyst's office this morning, I couldn't stop thinking about Roy's novel. The tremendous sadness. The heaviness of those hearts. The profundity of her questions. The incredibly stunning beauty she teases out at every turn. Yes, perhaps this is a gross illustration of the bourgeois use of literature. The fact that I include the word 'use.' The fact that pain, even fictional pain, could be used for my own 'healing' purposes. But in any case, this is one of the ways in which literature truly serves. It evokes feelings that might otherwise be muffled, and it illuminates the dark corners of the human mind. It provides a sort of private experience that can have very real, social repercussions. The God of Small Things makes me feel grateful. I need to feel grateful more often. Again, there is the literary theorist of a certain self-conscious school in me who scowls: what the hell does reading have to do with feeling? But feelings make up most of the world, feelings take up a lot of space. I do a lot of it. Somewhat shamefully, but I do. Shame is a feeling, too, isn't it? 

Weekend

8 pm on a Sunday night after what feels like the longest weekend ever. Friday was Louis's 24th birthday. We made two delicious vegetable lasagnas, and I dressed up the breakfast nook (which has become an any-and-all-meal nook) with a tablecloth and candle. For dessert, Chipp presented Louis with a 'double-thick' piece of carrot cake, and I unleashed a box of true Italian St. Joseph's Day cakes. We also passed a loaf of Sin Dawg around, which is this long, delicious seeded loaf of cinnamon bread by Dave's Killer Bread. 

We (Mike, Evans, Jimmy and I) spent Saturday afternoon at Powell's, where Jeff Garlin (who plays Larry David's manager and best friend on Curb Your Enthusiasm) gave a hilarious book talk. I had been planning on bear hugging him but I decided to settle for a handshake after experiencing serious heart palpitations while waiting on the signing line. He consented to a handshake. I played a trick on him. It was stupendous.

On Saturday night, I went to a party, after having not really been to a party for quite a while. It was a 'colorful clothing' party, which turned out to be a misnomer, because I got all decked out in purple leggings, a multicolored skirt, a purple sweater, and blue high-tops, and I was by far the most colorful person there. Evans wore his day-glo orange sweatshirt that makes him look like a road crew worker, and Mike wore a bright pink t-shirt underneath a green plaid button-up shirt. Louis wore bright red, white and blue (his patriotism never fails), and Jimmy wore bold green. Chipp wore loud orange. And we were the most colorful bunch there, which, for those who know us, is really, really bizarre.

Today we went to the coast. We hiked and hiked and hiked. Evans led us astray several times, but then it turned out to be fun and exciting and challenging and scary, so 'astray' became irrelevant. It was a gorgeous day. I met a big black bunny who enjoyed being hand-fed and pet by humans.


We stopped at the Rogue Brewery and Pub on the way back to Portland, which was actually just one of two bars in a one-block town, and we're all pretty sure the proprietors of the establishment are shamelessly ripping off Rogue Brewery. Not only was it  not an actual brewery, but Rogue beers were offered right along with a dozen ordinary beers, and there were awkwardly placed, unconvincing ROGUE posters taped up on the walls. The place is located in North Plains, which literally consists of one hardware store, two bars, and a secret meeting house. As we were leaving the bar I heard a man say to a woman who I assume is his wife, "Honey, you can be narrowminded, but it's wrong not to shake a man's hand."

I believe we're heading out to see Back to the Future at a local pub theater. My cheeks are sunburned. I am eating a delicious dinner of eggs, kale and tempeh, with a dab of hoisin sauce. Tomorrow marks the beginning of a week-long spring cleanse.

On Four Walls

I haven't lived in the same space for more than a year for the past six years of my life. My family moved from house to house while I was growing up, and the migration pattern worked its way into my internal wiring - I find myself antsy from time to time, uncomfortable in my own habitat, searching for loose roots to rip up. 

However, I sense that I am more of a nester than I'd like to believe. I like the idea of someday I will have a house of my own. Like a good American private property-crazy consumer capitalist. But actually, it isn't the notion of owning the house that appeals to me - it's thinking of how I will arrange objects within each given room. It's thinking about architectural flow. It's thinking about inside/outside and how to best mingle the two. I daydream about the perfect kitchen for cooking, canning and baking. I think about varying shapes of windows and door frames, quirky doorknobs, salvaged antique upholstery, and how to arrange a home library. 

I imagine many people experience the periodic desire to get rid of everything they own and begin anew. I am a selective pack rat (I'm not sure selectivity has much to do with being a pack rat, though), and I keep mostly paper-based things: magazines, journals, newspapers, books, love letters, old stories, new stories, discarded ideas, etc. Most of which have tremendous sentimental value. When it comes to everything else, I'm more likely to discard without much trouble, but 'trouble' is a relative term in this context. I will admit, when my mother was moving out of her house in December, she was absolutely determined to get rid of as much as possible, and I was frantic. I began hoarding: ashtrays, empty ornate boxes, throw rugs, picnic blankets, dishware, spice jars. Anything that rang the nostalgia bell, no matter how gently. And the central logic to this process of reclamation was: these things must be kept for when I have a house. As if objects actually hold parts of us that we barely recognize but can't afford to lose. And of course, I am on the other side of the country from all of those things, which are being stored in a tool shed at my father's house, and I am living in a bedroom that is sparsely occupied by books, a large suitcase, a bed, a chair, a stool, two lamps, a yoga mat, a wire hanger with a photograph clothespinned to it, a throw rug (thanks, Mama) and an assortment of miscellaneous items.  And my car, that lovely green beetle wagon, holds almost as much as my room holds, if not more, and that in itself seems like a balance I require: half on the ground and half ready to go.


So there is this play between nesting and wandering, and it informs everything: how willing I am to make connections and cultivate relationships here in Portland, how I imagine my future, the kind of livelihood I strive for, the amount of money I save versus the amount of money I spend. Perhaps this is a very ordinary position for a person my age to be in. Also: could this have anything to do with the alleged biological clock? Is there a nesting instinct that hasn't been smothered by layers of cultural, social, and linguistic evolution? The two sides of the struggle seem equally strong, yet the longing to nest arrives in the form of profound desire to stay in one place and form circle upon circle of love and family and community. When I meditate on the impulse to wander, I see myself, alone, and this aloneness is also appealing because it appears to be the necessary preparation for that eventual settling down.

These domestic spasms have led me to follow the New York Times Home & Garden section diligently. It's just amazing how people envision their homes and then make every move possible to manifest a beautiful, comfortable abode that is reflective of their unique sensibility.

I'm sure all of the people featured are wealthy to some extent - there are certainly no bare bones cold water flats featured. I recall a recent article that described an $8,000 redecorating budget as 'tight'.  Ha.
In any case: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/garden/index.html

Feeling Lighthearted

Examined Life: A Documentary

We’re beings toward death, we are featherless, two-legged, linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces who’s body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That’s us. We’re beings toward death.

At the same time, we have desire, why we are organisms in space and time, and so it’s desire in the face of death. And then of course you’ve got dogmatism, various attempts to hold on to certainty, various forms of idolatry. And you’ve got dialogue in the face of dogmatism. Then, of course, structurally and institutionally, you’ve got domination. And you have democracy, you have attempts of people trying to render accountable elites: kings, queens, corporate elites, politicians. Trying to make these elites accountable to everyday people. 

So philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialogue in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy - trying to keep alive very fragile democratic experiments - in the face of structures of domination: patriarchy, white supremacy, imperial power, state power - all those concentrated forms of power that are not accountable to people who are effected by it...

America is a very fragile democratic experiment predicated on the dispossession of the lands of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African peoples and the subjugation of women, the marginalization of gays and lesbians. It has great potential, but this notion that somehow we had it all or that we’ll ever have it all has got to go, you’ve got to push it to the side, and once you’ve pushed it to the side it tends to evacuate the language of disappointment and the language of failure, and you say, ok how much have we done? How did we do it? Can we do more?

Cornel West

the maple & the pine

 free show: michael hurley at mississippi records

the way is the way is the way

 

 

watch it

 

the business of being born: a documentary

Song 

Allen Ginsberg

San Jose, 1954

The weight of the world

is love.

Under the burden 

of solitude,

under the burden

of dissatisfaction,

the weight we carry

is love.

Who can deny?

In dreams

it touches

the body,

in thought

it constructs

a miracle,

in imagination

anguishes 

till born 

in human -

looks out of the heart

burning with purity

for the burden of life

is love,

but we carry the weight

wearily,

and so must rest 

in the arms of love

at last

must rest in the arms

of love.

No rest

without love,

no sleep

without dreams

of love - 

be mad or chill

obsessed with angels

or machines,

the final wish

is love

- cannot be bitter

cannot deny,

cannot withhold,

if denied:

the weight is too heavy

- must give 

for no return

as thought

is given 

in solitude

in all the excellence

of its excess. 

The warm bodies

shine together 

in the darkness, 

the hand moves

to the center

of the flesh,

the skin trembles

in happiness

and the soul comes

joyful to the eye -

yes, yes,

that's what

I wanted

I always wanted,

I always wanted

to return 

to the body

where I was born.

in colorado

Mainly I've been back to my books and writings and being nice and quiet and lazy. As I'm writing this, the radio says there's a foot of snow falling on Long Island. I really love snow and wish I could take a long walk in it right now.

Jack Kerouac 

Re-reading:

Open Veins of Latin America : Eduardo Galeano
Men in the Off Hours : Anne Carson




Writing:
Something is incubating.