I went for walk tonight along the river that runs behind the school. The sun was setting
over the hills, making me think of a piece I wrote four years ago during my freshman year. At the time, I didn’t know anyone, so I would sit by the river often, writing and reading Aldo Leopold, Khrishnamurti, and Thoreau.
The silence and solitude of the path still moves me. I think the piece captures that well:
Gradually I’ve made progress on my to-do list. Today I submitted my thesis for final approval. Once my advisor gives the OK, I defend it. My graduate applications continue in a steady stream. In time, those will be done.
I can finally see the horizon of the next projects: my coming-of-age memoir for an honors project and a short story I’ve had simmering for a few months now. I’ve got some reading piling up as well. From one project to another, I guess.
Last week, I spoke to one of my professors. He had just finished his dissertation and felt an odd sense of freedom. Without the project tugging him along, he didn’t have anything to direct him. It was liberating, but disconcerting. An open horizon. A void.
Yep, another update. But I should be having some more substantial posts soon as I only have four more weeks of school before winter break. In the meantime, the work goes on. Still, I have some reflections to consider.
“You have to do what nourishes you,” one of my English professors said earlier this semester. The words have been close at hand the past few days. After a three-week low, I’ve started to pick up lately. I’ve gotten a lot of work done and have had some meaningful interactions with people.
In short, I’ve nourished myself.
You don’t fall in love like you fall in a hole. You fall likefalling through space. It’s like you jump off your own private planet to visit someone else’s planet. And when you get there it all looks different: the flowers, the animals, the colours people wear. It is a big surprise falling in love because you thought you had everything just right on your own planet, and that was true, in a way, but then somebody signalled to you across space and the only way you could visit was to take a giant jump. Away you go, falling into someone else’s orbit and after a while you might decide to pull your two planets together and call it home. And you can bring your dog. Or your cat. Your goldfish, hamster, collection of stones, all your odd socks. (The ones you lost, including the holes, are on the new planet you found.)
And you can bring your friends to visit. And read your favourite stories to each other. And the falling was really the big jump that you had to make to be with someone you don’t want to be without. That’s it.
PS You have to be brave.
–Jeanette Winterson, answering why do we fall in love?” in Big Questions from Little People: and Simple Answers from Great Minds
I’ve been thinking a lot lately, going over old photographs and reading articles. It’s been introspective. At such times, I always recall an image a friar once used to describe spiritual growth: Augustine’s wineskins.
Augustine noted that a fresh wineskin is too tight to hold much wine. Someone fills it, and it strains, bulging and stretching, ready to burst. Gradually, it stretches enough to hold more, so we pour more in, but again, it fills quickly. Still, it stretches, and as we repeat the process, it can suddenly hold gallons.
Likewise, life stretches us through challenge, reflection, and experience. The same events that hurt us or stretch us as we grow, let us hold more. As another friar told me, “The older I get the more grief I can hold.”
Rain clouds loomed outside as I sat across from my spiritual advisor, Br. Robert, in the simple room. “You have to own it,” he said. “You’re an artist. Own it.”
He talked about his early years as a friar. The other friars didn’t think much of his penchant for painting, forcing Br. Robert to sacrifice his own time, money, and space for it. At one point, he even tried to suppress the urge because it interfered so much with his religious duties. Just as Thomas Merton complained about his “double” as a writer pestering him during his early years with the Trappists, Br. Robert struggled with the artist fighting for expression from within.
When he left the friars–and the Catholic Church for a time–Brother Robert lived on Skid Row, trying to make his work as an artist. He found a deep, resonant calling. Surviving on rice and beans–tuna fish, when he could afford it–he scraped by, but his art taught him his vows better than his stint with the friars. Poverty. Obedience. Chastity. The words clarified as the years wore on.
For Br. Robert, devotion to art proved a devotion to God.
“Own it,” he had said. The words made sense as he said them, but didn’t resonate. As the years has pass, the words Br. Robert and I shared deepen and clarify, like his vows. Tempered and stretched by experience, his wisdom grows. I understand him now.
Again, I apologize for my lack of posting. I’ll try to maintain one per week until my schedule dies down–perhaps posting a quote or video now and then as well. For now, here’s an update.
Last week, I applied for a Fullbright in France, a dream I’ve had since my high school trip to France. Unfortunately, I had forgotten it, but last year, a Fullbright scholar named Ahmed came to teach French at my school. I met him at tryouts for a play and the two of us became friends. He rekindled that dream and my love for French culture and language.
He’s back in France now, but we write sometimes, and little by little, I’m putting aside money for a possible voyage to Provence. Unfortunately food and bills often take precedent.
Now, I must focus on my thesis: the challenges of absurdity and judgment in the fiction of Albert Camus. By tomorrow, I hope to have a 30-page draft for my adviser. From there, let the edits begin.
Some advice from my favorite Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, that I ran across today:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Okay, so the cafe isn’t quite empty. It’s got a few green-shirted workers sweeping the
floor and standing around balancing on their heels. But it’s almost empty.
A gray drizzle shadows the campus outside and a warm fire flickers nearby, giving the illusion of warmth. Most of the students have left for break or are elbow-deep in packing. I’m staying to work and reflect. It’s been a busy few weeks and I need to catch my breath, write my thesis, and sort out my post-graduation life.
A few thoughts swirl in my head. Last fall, I sat in this same cafe for 12 hours. It’s a campus-bound Starbucks with earthy colors and cozy chairs called La Verna, a place where time slips away unnoticed and people pass through like birds in migration. Grounded there for so long, I felt like a rock watching the seasons change.
I haven’t posted in a while. I apologize. Life has a nasty way of putting things we enjoy doing to the edge of our days. But, in any case…
Raindrops slapped the tinted leaves and rolled onto the path, now dyed black by 
moisture. I kept my hood down, sheltered by leaves, and took in the ruddy hills and open fields, the trees around me sighing with the weight of rain.
The air was wet and subdued, while a rumpled gray spanned the sky, tucked into the horizon like an old blanket. I could feel things slowing down, fall coming, a dimming twilight before winter, the air changing.
I started talking Sunday walks–once per week–after I stopped going to church last fall. The empty ritual and hollow chants didn’t nourish me. I figured a walk in the woods held promise, unbound by the time-soaked labels of the Latin Rite and the Christian cannon.
Even if I didn’t call it God, something in nature holds the same transcendent immanence for me–even if it’s just an illusion of experience. It’s something I can cling to and feel cradled in.
I also use my walk as a time to think. Today was no exception.
Backyard Philosophy 