Yearly Archives: 2011

A Week Without

When was the last time you went a week without something? Perhaps something you enjoy. Perhaps something that you struggle with. Perhaps something you are sensing transition with.

Maybe, for some of you, you have done so or are doing so right now due to circumstance. There has been bad weather and flooding in the eastern United States. For some that has meant a week without power, telephone or Internet. For far too many in the world at large a week without food or shelter is a regular occurrence.

This is a question I have been sitting with for a while now. I think it is often times important to do without in order to get a better sense of our place within. Perhaps a week without Twitter or Facebook will help you better understand the value that you derive from it. Perhaps a week without caffeine will help you better frame your dependence on it. Perhaps a week without your iPhone will help you evaluate your use of it.

The week is intended to help one see the advantages as well as the disadvantages so that one may determine the best approach. That may be a revelation that the thing you went without holds an important place in your daily life. It might also determine that after a week you could do another until you find you did not need it at all.

Starting next week I’m going to go without something. I have not quite decided what that is yet (hence the “next week”). I’ll announce what it is next Monday so that I may be kept accountable. This is not a directive nor am I trying to start some movement. I’m just asking a question aloud in the hopes that the asking may help others as well. If you too are inspired to go a week without something, I welcome the camaraderie and would love to hear about your experiment and experience.

Stay tuned.

Vessels, Names, and Frames

When was the last time you had soda out of a wine glass? My guess is, for most of those reading, the answer is either a while or never.

Why is that? After all, the wine glass is just a glass like any other glass, right? In the simplest terms, it’s a vessel for containing liquid. Just like every other vessel for containing liquid. Why, then, are we not just as likely to reach for a wine glass as we are any other glass when we want to pour a glass of soda?

I believe we don’t because we have given this kind of glass a size, and shape, and name, that pre-determines the likelihood of and is ideally suited for what liquid that glass will be filled with. In this case wine.

Wine glasses are designed the way they are for a reason. They have a stem for which to hold them, so that the heat of one’s hand does not effect the temperature of the wine. The base is wider than the lip in order to provide a wide surface for the wine to breathe while letting the aroma pool in the glass. Yet, the glass opening is not so wide that it prevents your nose from entering while sipping so that you can taste with both senses. All of these things matter in the case of wine. Not so much in the case of soda. Wine glasses are designed for wine, not for soda.

That said, next time you have a soda, grab a wine glass and poor some in as you would wine. Not too much, about 2-4 ounces. Now, hold it and sip it as you would wine. Does it change the experience of drinking soda a bit? Does it feel a bit more classy? Elegant even? For me it does. Just as much as drinking wine out of a juice glass feels a bit less so.

The vessels we create often determine the things that contain them. Also, changing the vessel can change our perception and our experience and what we place in them. Even the name of the vessel can make such determinations.

The same is true of the way we frame ourselves.

Are you a blogger who writes blog posts? Because, if you are, that is a frame. Not only will those hearing that frame paint a specific picture of what it is you do and who you are but you, likely, will do so as well. The picture will be reflective and appropriate of the frame you built to contain it. The frame places certain conscious and subconscious limits. There are many things that frame can contain and many others that frame can not. And that is OK. There has been and will continue to be a place and platform for bloggers who write blog posts.

But what happens if you change the frame?

What if, instead, you are a writer who writes essays? Well now, that seems like the picture has changed hasn’t it? That frame gives the picture new possibilities and new limits. And, though the content and publication may be the same, that frame opens new ideas and responsibilities for what that picture, that craft, can and should be. Bloggers, writing blog posts, belong on blogs. But writers who write essays… Well those could be anywhere! Your essays could be on a blog, sure. But they could also be in a magazine or a book.

So, now comes the hard part. Make a choice. Name your vessel and fill it. Frame your picture and paint it.

I’m not here

I’m not here. Wherever here is these days. For me, here is as much an idea and a goal as a place. Therefore, here is not quite here for me right now. No place you can see really is. It is largely because of that you have not seen the regular updates in this place I would prefer. I’m not here.

Where am I? As David Foster Wallace used to say, I’m deep into something long. Which was his way of describing where here is for a writer who is writing a book. That is where I am. I’m deep into something long. Furthermore, I’m into something that questions the very heart of how I approach places such as this. Other places as well. Because of these questions, I’m increasingly uncertain as to what belongs where. I am even beginning to wonder if much of this belongs anywhere at all.

When I was a teenager I took a summer long creative writing course. One of the many, many lessons I learned there that stick with me today is this: For a writer, some things come out fully formed. Other things come out a sentence or a word at a time. That you may have a sentence, or even a single word, that you know is great and belongs somewhere but does not quite fit anywhere yet. Stick it aside, the instructor said. It may be days or weeks or years but you will know when it comes to you. That word might be the missing piece of a paragraph. That sentence might be the beginning of a whole book. Or, perhaps, that sentence or word belongs on the sticky note you scribbled it on and stuck aside to remind you that even not having a place is a place in itself.

I feel very much in that place. I feel like so many of those words and sentences I should have stuck aside in a special place just for me I have instead blown into the ether-wind that is Twitter, etc. and now they are in places I can’t find them. I wonder what great paragraphs they might have made or great books they might have spawned. I try to console myself with the idea that someone else’s place is a place as well and perhaps these things might do some good there. Sometimes such consolation works. Far too often not. Which is all the more reason I am not there as much as I used to be. When I am it is at odd hours and quick bursts and unsure intention. I’m just not there anymore. It does not belong to me.

This place is all mine. It even has my name on it. Yet, I’m no longer sure what this place should be for me. This place was a place for me to stick those words and sentences and paragraphs until where they fit was revealed. And now that they live on in that place, as a book, I’m not sure what this place should now contain. I’m not sure what it represents. I’m not sure what this place is and should be.

Frankly, I’m not going to figure it out right now. All I know is that I’m not here. This place is not with where I am and I’m not where this place is. It is mine. I can rip it down and rebuild it should I so choose. Certainly, some of the broader thinking I have been doing around the deep long thing will help with such choices. But I also don’t have to do anything right now. Not choosing is a choice in itself. Perhaps, like those words and sentences and paragraphs that are placeless, perhaps the place for here will be revealed. I have time.

I am deep into that long thing and the deeper I get the less I have to share elsewhere. Only one of my online sites is getting any attention, and that is only because it’s message is similarly aligned with the long thing. Yet even that alignment is still not enough for it not to feel as much a distraction from where here is for me as anywhere else. I rest in the idea that that site at least does not take my head too far out of the game and that maybe a word or sentence I put there might be part of something I just have not seen yet. Perhaps the long thing.

As for this place and most others, if you are wondering where I am, now you know. I’m not here.