By now the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Tr*mp has been well-dissected. Kamala Harris closed her comments saying among other things, this:

“I'll tell you, I started my career as a prosecutor. I was a D.A. I was an attorney general. A United States senator. And now vice president. I've only had one client. The people. And I'll tell you, as a prosecutor I never asked a victim or a witness are you a Republican or a Democrat. The only thing I ever asked them, are you okay? And that's the kind of president we need right now. Someone who cares about you and is not putting themselves first.”

 (From the transcripts found on ABC News).

Maybe this simple question will change the world. In her book Welcoming the Unwelcome, Pema Chödrön notes how important it is to “listen deeply and without judgement when people speak about their experiences and their suffering.” She says, “What has been dysfunctional does need to be openly addressed.” Asking, “are you okay?” is an acknowledgement, it is a question of care, and while a simple question, there is courage in it. There is the implication that there will be follow through.

In my own life, I think I have asked the question in my line of work/day job thousands of times. To make sure someone sleeping isn’t having a medical crisis, it’s necessary to wake them up. Next, you’ll ask, are you okay? The person will be groggy often, so follow up is necessary. Are you feeling well? Are you sure? Do you need medical attention? And often you’re repeating the question, are you okay? Sometimes this is all that’s required. “I’m glad you’re okay.” Sometimes other avenues must be followed depending on the situation. All day long we’re asking people, are you okay? We’re saying, all good? We’re taking a moment and making sure, we’re saying, how goes? We’re asking, you’re cool? All well? We are reiterating, you sure you’re good? you’re good right? We’re saying, just so long as you’re cool, it’s cool, yah.

Maybe because I ask the question a lot at work, I tend to carry it around with me. I’m always asking my loved ones, are you okay? I’m asking, how are you? and there’s an intensity to what seems a throwaway question these last years. I know some people complain about that question, how are you? It can be a terrible question depending, or a real one. However it’s answered, one can look for clues: coherence, breathing, dullness, annoyance, sincerity, joking, politeness, sedity. All these tell a story and indicate wellness or unwellness or another state of being. The answer doesn’t matter per se, though it can matter.

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For the last couple of years I have gone in and out of a rather dark depression. I think I’m okay now. But I have joked that when someone has asked me how I am or if I’m okay, that I have about 6 different answers minimum depending on how well I know the person, how vulnerable or open I feel, how trusted the person is, how I actually am vs how I want to be that day, how receptive I think the person is, how much capacity I think the person might have for my bullshit, how much capacity I have for my bullshit, on and on etc.

I’ve recently been reading the cool book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. He became quite well-known when he shared this word and his poetic definition on his blog:

“Sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.”

It seems like this is something one might like to carry around in one’s head as one asks, are you okay?

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I have dipped in and out of the book during my morning reading sessions and happened to at one point skip to the end. And in large letters on page 155 pops the word:

“O.K.”

Koenig says, “According to linguists, that is the most commonly understood word in the world, the closest thing we have to a master key. The only problem with that is, well, nobody seems to know what those two letters are supposed to stand for.” No one knows what the origin of the word is. He says, “Nobody knows for sure, and we may never know. But somehow it doesn’t matter.” This not knowing, he says for a dictionary, “is a reminder to stay humble.”

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The question I was obsessed with thinking about when writing my novel Rumi and the Red Handbag was “What are you going through?” (Which ended up being the title for a book by Sigrid Nunez).( My book came out in 2015 and hers 2019 I believe — which is fine because they are nothing alike).

The question comes from the Grail quest. The grail, says Simone Weil, “belongs to the first comer who asks the guardian of the vessel, a king three-quarters paralyzed by the most painful wound, “What are you going through?” She says, that being able to ask the question indicates the “love of our neighbour in all its fullness.” The sufferer was “one day stamped with a special mark by affliction. For this reason it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how to look at him in a certain way.” And, “this way of looking is first of all attentive. The soul empties itself of all its own contents in order to receive into itself the being it is looking at, just as he is, in all his truth. Only he who is capable of attention can do this.”

Joseph Campbell describes the quest thus:

“Parzifal makes two visits to the Grail Castle. The first is a failure. The Grail King is a wounded man, whose nature has been broken by castration in a battle. Parzifal spontaneously wishes to ask him, “What is wrong?” But then, he has been told that a knight does not ask questions, and so, in order to preserve the image of himself as a noble knight, he restrains his natural impulse of compassion, and the Grail quest fails.”

The trick of the Grail Quest, is that, according to Campbell, “It is an immediate participation in the suffering of another to such a degree that you forget yourself and your own safety and spontaneously do what’s necessary.” The question is not withheld; the question is spontaneous. The question leads to participation.

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What’s interesting about the questions: are you okay? and what are you going through? is that there are a lot of obstacles often in our way. Sometimes they are perceived obstacles. But often our own state of mind comes into play, our own circumstances. Our immediate level of safety is a real concern. Our relationship with the sufferer, the power structures around a relationship, these affect our ability to ask the question and to be attentive to the answer in the sense that Weil indicates. The questions sound so simple but rarely is any interaction with another human simple.

I like that Kamala Harris voiced the question, are you okay? And that the word o.k. or okay is the most commonly understood word in the world. We need to meet somewhere and maybe we could meet there. Okay? Also: I truly hope you are okay.

Lastly, here are some of my possible answers when I am asked if I’m okay, and please feel free to add yours in the comments.

Are you okay?

No. Absolutely not. I will be. No thanks to you. Sometimes. By force of will. With great and astonishing effort. Because I hit the rocks. Because I have spent time extensively repairing my soul. Today, yes. Right now yes. Yes. I am always okay. I am always well. Will you accept a half-truth? I am quite okay. Quite well. Quite okay. You know, you know. Resounding yes. Not sure, are you? Are you?

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Thanks for being here and for reading and for supporting. Your presence means everything. That said, if you have been reading for a long time and would consider becoming a monthly supporter, please check out my Ko-fi page. You might even have the honour of becoming the first monthly supporter :) I appreciate you all, including my wonderful tip jar contributors!

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September 17, 2024

How will you live like an artist today? This is the question I keep asking myself and I try to throw it out there into the wilderness too.

We all know the answers, but we need to hear them again and again. We need to listen to the work, our life’s work, most of all, because it tells us what we’re required to do.

I’ve written a few of these posts on living like an artist by now, but maybe this whole blog leans toward demonstrating how to live like an artist. The over and over of process. The repetitions, the ego, the lack of ego, the doubt, the joy, the humility, the humiliations! Living as a civilian, as I've pointed out in a book called The Flower Can Always Be Changing, is at some point no longer an option.

Let’s start with a poem to set the tone:

Better is Better Than Not Better

by Elaine Equi

Grateful today
for small things:

getting paid
and paying bills,

my new orange
ring-of-Saturn
dinner plates,

spaghetti,

wine,

the ability
to praise coherently
the books I love.

{source}

And isn’t that just a gift? To be able to praise coherently the books you love? Part of the art-life, too.

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I think we’re all always looking for models — how to be, and wondering, how did this or that person manage to live as an artist? Often, we’re looking at the monetary part of things, figuring out how we, too, can make a go of it. We’re seeing what was given up (haircuts, friends, healthcare, peace of mind — I could go on) and what was gained. (We add to the beauty and potentially philosophical and ethical thought of the world rather than detract from it. Our days are richer thanks to our preoccupations. We are regularly astonished and amazed and in awe, etc).

A book I’ve been drawing inspiration from is The Work of Art by Adam Moss. There are 43 interviews with artists, choreographers, writers, cartoonists, etc. I’ve tended to read just one of the entries, replete with illustrations of process and art, per evening. Some nights, I’ve just flipped through the book and looked at the photographs of the work, the process, the mess, the thinking things through made visible. Maybe the biggest take-away is that there is no formula, no “secret.” (Unless you count the work itself, the obsessive working).

In the afterword, Moss says, “Art has a before and an after. The before is the training — the acquisition of skills, the assumption of habits. The after is the practical activity of putting finger to key, palm to clay, and going to town.”

And then:

“But there is also an in-between. It’s the mysterious part. Some describe that mystery as magical, otherworldly. Others view it as their subconscious churning. It doesn’t matter. All artists are mystics at heart, and they’re talking about the same thing — and that thing is what they can’t really talk about, because it cannot be put into language.”

One feels looking at all the images in the book, the sketches, the scribbles, the scratchings, the notes, that therein lies the magic. Just the obsessive working as a thing. And, I love that. I love looking at the photos. And. I also love the interviews, interspersed with commentary, intros, and etc. The subtitle of the book is, “how something comes from nothing” and I can just imagine the massive task it would have been to assemble all this material into a work of art unto itself for all of us to peruse. It’s really delightful, and wonderful, and a gift of a tome. It’s obviously super interesting to creative types, but I think anyone would enjoy this glimpse into all these many artistic lives. Inspiration on every page.

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As many of us have been, and if you’ve been in the creativity game for most of your life, odds are you’ll have a shelf devoted to books like Big Magic, and Bird by Bird, and The Writing Life etc. We’ve got books on craft, and books on how to comport oneself at one’s book launch. These books have been indispensable, for sure! But I really didn’t know if I needed any more of them. Still, I succumbed and got the massive best seller by Rick Rubin, the Creative Act: A Way of Being. I’m glad I did.

A few quotations for you:

“We are dealing in a magic realm.
Nobody knows why or how it works.”

“Being an artist means to be continually asking, “How can it be better?” whatever it is. It may be your art and it may be your life.”

“However you frame yourself as an artist the frame is too small.”

I appreciate how in the second quotation above, it’s understood that your life and your art work in tandem. I appreciate the guidance to not frame yourself too small.

I feel like when you are based in a smaller less “cool” locale, things are trickier in some ways. Sure process is same but support is different. And that’s fine. Sometimes it can be freeing to create off the beaten path. But it’s not without challenges. And maybe that’s why books like the two I’ve mentioned today are useful, too — if we can think of books and their writers as ‘unmet friends’ it can feel like we’re getting some encouragement from someone who gets us.

I find it very helpful and splendidly delightful to hear, after all these years writing, and making stuff, that “nobody knows why or how it works.” Doesn’t matter where you’re doing the making or what you’re making, it’s all mystery, it’s all a magic trick. But it’s also doggedness, work, scary discipline, obsession, trying and trying and trying and freaking trying. Which of course we know, but hearing it does the heart good.

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A note on the photographs: the web was in my backyard this week and I can’t see a spiderweb without thinking about this:

“The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.”

―Louise Bourgeois

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September 9, 2024

I’ve often written here about the Patrizia Cavalli book my poems won’t change the world. So I won’t quote again from it today.

I had a note from a fb friend sharing her poetry, Federica Galetto, whose book is Ode from a Nightingale, translated by Chiara De Luca. And I have another unmet friend, Sara Bini who is a poet and musician who shares her work on Instagram, often, and on a blog which she translates into English. And I’ve been thinking how wonderful it is to know those who write poetry in Italian. And then, the gift that is translation, that labour of love.

While I studied Italian in uni three thousand years ago, I have forgotten almost all of it. I’ve been doing DuoLingo Italian off and on for a few years and it’s something…but one only has so much time and energy.

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Interestingly, Federica Galetto wrote her book in English, though her first language is Italian. I admire that so much! The Italian is a translation from Chiara De Luca. De Luca says of the poems, “When you become alone you perfectly fit in your eyes, you are in the body of all animals, waiting to welcome any fragile light and ever-changing smell, any secret voice and iridescent colour.” Take a look:

Have you ever

Have you ever heard of my granitic soul?
A crooning crown on top, a steel–plated
lace around the neck.

Have you ever seen my watered eyes?
Two pure gems in the middle, a flooding
joy hold in a flock of seagulls flying
to the heart of this earth.

Running against a desperate quintessence,
there I find a floe, a limpid lineage
I descend from as a queen without a king.

And still drops run away, the sky dissolved
in a gloomy cloud where I sit and wait for the
day again, beautiful screen of devotion
in a mist.

Hai mai

Hai mai sentito della mia anima di granito?
Una corona che canticchia in cima, una collana
corazzata al collo.

Hai mai visto i miei occhi d’acqua?
Due pure gemme al centro, una gioia
esondante in uno stormo di gabbiani
in volo verso il cuore della terra.

In corsa contro la quintessenza affranta,
vi trovo un banco di ghiaccio, un limpido lignaggio
da cui discendo come una regina senza re.

E ancora gocce scorrono via, il cielo si è dissolto
in una nube cupa dove siedo in attesa che ritorni
il giorno, schermo splendido di devozione
in una nebbia.

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Translation of poetry cannot be done by machines, that much is true. Check out this translation by John Duval of a short poem by Trilussa:

Happiness

I saw a bee settle
on a rose petal.
It sipped, and off it flew.
All in all, happiness, too,
is something little.

And then compare it to another translation on this site where the word sipped is “sucks” and see how that changes the meaning, the feeling.

The Italian:

Felicità

C’e un Ape che se posa
su’un bottone de rosa:
Io succhia e se ne va…
Tutto sommato, la felicità
è una piccola cosa.

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I don’t think I have to make a case for the importance of reading poetry in translation with my readers. You already know how much you can learn about the world by doing so. A site you might enjoy is Poetry International. You might also like to check out a very cool magazine The Polyglot. (They’re also on Instagram).

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Your poetry club challenge this week is to read a poem in translation, any poem, and compare it to its original. Better yet, read it outdoors! It’s fall where I live, and there’s nothing better than sitting outside with a book of poetry in the golden light…

For example, you might start with this poem translated by a friend of mine. “Only Yesterday” by Liliana Ursu is translated from the Romanian by Adriana Onițǎ here.

But okay, I lied, I’d like to end with a poem by Patrizia Cavalli. I’d like to encourage you to read a poem and then sit there and be wonderfully bored. Like this.

“The more bored you are, the more attached you get.
I’m so bored, I no longer want to die.”

(translated by Gini Alhadeff)

“Più ci si annoia e più ci si affeziona.
M’annoio tanto, non voglio più morire.”

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September 5, 2024