Tuesday morning and a chilly one. Yesterday was productive. I worked on revising my essays. Liza wrote another chapter for her book. I spent all day on the property, only left the studio once to go down to Rock House and make a phone call. It felt good to be in the groove. My goal is to do a preliminary revision of each essay before I leave, also marking down how mang pages and words in the piece. I was saying to Liza yesterday how it feels like now I can talk about the essays as one entity, that they are starting to congeal and form into a chorus of many voices singing together, really that they are not “they” anymore but “It” and have a single destiny. Yippee!!

I was reading another encouraging and inspiring book yesterday by William Stafford. He’s always been dear to my heart as he was the poet laureate of Oregon for many years and that’s my home state. He also writes great poems and was a teacher at Lewis & Clark College for many years. His approach to writing poetry is so real, so uncomplicated. He (just as Brenda Ueland does) believes that the key to great poetry is the greatness of the poet, not whether they have multiple degrees, have read every classic backwards and forwards or have fame and fortune in their lives. This is what he says in his essay The End of a Golden String from his book Writing the Australian Crawl: “Let me say that a poem comes from a life, not a study. The influences pounce upon a writer, and any rules or traditions get buffeted. Entering the sequence–writing or reading–is entering what unfolds.”

Stafford rose every morning of his life at 4 AM to write. He knew that if he showed up for writing, if he sat there with pen in hand and began where he was at that moment that it was possible he would be led somewhere interesting. He believed in writing as a practice, not as a product. He says in his essay A Way of Writing: “A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them. That is, he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, he engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories, poems, essays, plays, laws, philosophies, religions.” I feel in complete alignment with this view of writing. It is my experience that writing is 80% the heart and soul of the writer and 20% craft. I have read so much writing that did not move me–oh, there were deep contemplative thoughts, beautiful language arranged artistically on the page, but I felt nothing when I read it. There is nothing “wrong” with such writing or with the one who wrote it. There is only a misdirection of energy which has been perpetuated by the culture pointing the writer in the direction of intellect rather than spiritual and emotional depth.

I hadn’t been writing much of anything new since I had been here but after reading Stafford’s essays I sat down and did exactly what he suggests and this came to me by starting simply with describing what I saw…

Garden Studio Monday Morning

Out the window the water tower covered with ivy, a dozen red leaves clinging. On top a rotting two by four ensnared by the vine, moss clinging, three rusted nails protrude. A breeze shakes the yellow leaves. Inside the heater blows warm air. My fingers are chilled, goose bumps on my legs. I can feel the tip of my nose, icy and numb. In the garden below birds feed on decaying plants. The mottled hillside to the south is letting go the sun, slipping into winter. Somewhere people are wearing suits and ties, hose and high heels, taking elevators to the 23rd floor to their desks, opening their computer, a cup of coffee beside them, looking at the clock at nine, wanting it to be five. Somewhere trains are running and street lights change from red to green and mother’s drop their children at school, take the laundry to the cleaners, stop for groceries, fill the car with gas. Somewhere planes are flying to New York and Zurich and Bombay. Someone opens a magazine, another does a crossword, the earth passes below; farms and cities, mountains and rivers essing through the land. Here, outside the window, the tower, the trees and garden, the birds and clear blue sky. Here I am watching, recording. Here we are woven together, remembered; forever and immortal.

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Here are some photos of the Garden Studio inside and out:

Road from Rock House up to Garden and other cabins farther up in the woods

The Garden Studio

The tower and garden shed.

My sleeping and meditation space.

My Writing Desk

This is a big room where performances can be held. That’s a grand piano in the corner.

Liza’s room

Out Liza’s window