Kindling the Muse
It is nearly 7:30 in the morning, and it is still quite dark outside despite the snow and icestorm that is passing through. I have been up for several hours now, writing and studying music.
In other words, kindling the muse.
There is a song by James Taylor off of the New Moon Shine album called “Like Everyone She Knows,” and it struck me this morning at the right time. Here’s the point to the song:
Hold tight to your heart’s desire
Never ever let it go.
Let nobody fool you into giving it up too soon.
Tend your own fire.
Lay low and be strong.
Wait it out, let it come along.
These lyrics come to me at a time where I am returning to a simpler approach to life. I know this sounds crazy. Next week, I begin teaching a writing course in Howard County, and the following week the semester begins at Towson. My brother-in-law’s book comes out in a few months, and I’m preparing for my own official launch of my book, Cold Rock, in late March or April.
It seems like I should be forgetting all that muse stuff and that babble about simpler living, right? I need to be on autopilot and just push through these next sixteen weeks and survive. Isn’t that the right way to get through this craziness?
No. It’s not the right way at all.
I think that a return to the muse is the best way to stay focused, the best way to remain balanced through these busier times.
Writing and music touches the core of who I am. To lose contact with that core cannot be healthy for me (or for anyone else). It is through my strength, my connection to that higher spirit that I am able to do any of these things.
To abandon that now would be foolish in all ways.
So I am holding on tight to my heart’s desire. I am reconnecting with my muse and higher spirit through my own writing and music, and cherishing the simple joy and beauty it brings to my day.
The Gretsch G5120 Electromatic Hollowbody that I have pictured above is a beautiful guitar that I am looking at for late spring, early summer. Until then, I have an incredible acoustic guitar that I will play with daily, learning all I can, and reconnecting with my muse.
Playing guitar is the greatest complement to my writing for me; together, they open doors within me that I never knew existed. Through those open pathways, I find strength and balance to experience life fully, in the present.
But all I am doing is tending my own fire, laying low and being strong, and waiting it out.
The only way to letting it come along, come along. . . .
RunSlamBreak: My Response to Lindsay Amanda
The following is a response to “Fleeting,” a post written and shared with me by a good soul, Lindsay Amanda, whom I had the honor to work with four years ago.
Lindsay, I am both proud and humbled by your work, and I know you will cease the fleet to live and love, at every door, along the way.
This is for you.
image: rus vanwestervelt, from photos taken at Gettysburg National Historic Site
RunSlamB r e a k
The doors I pass, all locked and sealed
with the rust of rush
of years gone by.
You, me, we as winds whip us through
so blindly we go
here, there, and every no-where.
But we–
we
RunSlamB r e a k
now
at every rush-rusted door
and live to love and love to live
and wash the rush with wishes made
here, there, and every-where.
Open doors, opportunities,
the sounds of suns sifting through red-yellow trees
seeping seeds of life and love made long to live. . . .
Carry the key always, Lindsay
and never let the rush of rust
push you by-and-by that once-opened door.
It was always meant for you.
For you, for you.
RunSlamB r e a k
for you.
Presentation: Maryland Writing Project Write-To-Learn
This morning, I led a workshop on metacognition and daybooking. If you attended this morning’s workshop or are interested in learning more about this, you can download my Powerpoint presentation here. Feel free to email me with any questions at all.
Drive It Back: A Smash365 Response
In response to the 11/30/11 Smash365 prompt: Imagination.
Think back to younger days when imagination ruled your day. Did you abandon your imagination for more “grown-up” ideas and responsibilities? Grant yourself the space to be imaginative today and write on the following topic: While driving to a relative’s house, you notice that, with each turn, you go back further in time. What period in time is it when you reach your destination? What is the significance of being in this place, at this time?
“Have you lost your way, Son?”
My hands are gripped tightly around the wheel of my ’68 Ford Falcon, a wreck of a car I call Deuce, as I stare out the windshield at the old, aquamarine blue paint fading on the hood.
I dare not look left at the officer, or any farther along the street I’m on, Littlewood Road, where I grew up.
Or, is it “growing” up? I’m not sure anymore.
“Son, I asked you a question. Are you ok?”
I am afraid to move in fear of what might happen next. I am absolutely positive that, not 25 minutes ago, I was in my house in Towson, saying goodbye to my wife and three children, before heading to teach for the day.
Now I am 16 again, here on Littlewood, in the car that barely got me from red light to red light along Joppa Road in the early 1980s.
“Son?”
I turn to face the officer, and he sees something in my eyes he does not like. He takes a step back from the car, rests his right hand on his revolver, and speaks in a different tone — this time with a little less concern for me and a lot more for himself.
“Son, I need you to exit your vehicle slowly, but immediately. Do you understand me?”
I try to move, but my legs — they just won’t work.
“Off- Officer,” I stutter. “What- what year is it?”
The officer begins walking backward toward his car, his shadow thrown in front of him every time the single red cherry light pulses from the top of his car. The shadow is long, ever-growing, as he reaches the door of his police car.
He grabs the handset of his radio and tries to muffle his voice, but I hear every word.
“613 to Dispatch. I need a backup here at Littlewood and Joppa.”
I wave at the cop with my left arm, “Officer, you don’t understand.”
“You keep those hands on that wheel, son.”
He unbuckles the strap on his holster and grips the handle of his service pistol.
“Really, Officer. I can explain.”
But I know I cannot. How can I explain to him that, not twenty minutes ago, I was 46 years old, living in Towson with my family, and heading to school like I’ve done every day for the last 25 years?
. . . .To be continued? Most likely! ~rvw
Is Brevity Replacing A Writer’s Sensibility?
Writers are being forced to think too much these days (I think), and they are facing a danger that is both very real and damaging to the relationship between reader and writer.
Because of the changes in how we spend our time reading stories, not to mention how we read them in the first place, writers are working desperately to keep a captive audience — not an easy thing to do with so much writing now available so freely and immediately.
Do I focus on search-engine optimization (SEO)? What about word count? What does my target audience (who is that anyway anymore?) really want? What is going to hold my reader more than 90 seconds, when their finger is perched precariously on the tip of the mouse, ready to click me into oblivion as the search continues for something more entertaining?
With the exception of SEO and the ease of maneuvering from one piece of writing to the next, all with a click of the mouse, the questions I pose for writers above are no different than what writers have been asking themselves for decades. We still want to write for an audience that understands what we are saying, even if they don’t necessarily agree with it.
But how to do that?
It is precisely due to the ease of leaving your work that makes writers more desperate to hold on to your attention. Before blogs and search engines and RSS feeds, we just had to tease them enough to buy the darn thing. Once they got it in their hands, they gave us a fair chance — maybe a few chapters or up to 100 pages — before they made a decision to keep on reading or line the birdcage with its ripped-out pages.
In that desperation, I think we are sacrificing sensibility, the very essence of a writer’s passion for writing the piece in the first place. We are so concerned about getting to the point very quickly that we do not allow our purpose, our intent, to build in the story.
This is why, I think, we are seeing “flash fiction” and similar nonfiction subgenres continuing to emerge as a legitimate form of writing. How quickly can you get to your point and share that sensibility before you reach your last-allowed 750th word? At times, I feel like I’m reading stories that are more suited to fit in the microwave-ready Lean Cuisine dish.
Sure, these stories/meals are good on-the-go, but is it really possible to establish and sustain long-lasting and filling themes with such a diet?
As I wrap up the final edits on my book that goes to the printer next week for a December 9th release, I know that one of the best things going for me is that the story is short — a mere 51,000 words that barely pushes the 200-page mark.
But I am also making sure that, to the best of my ability, I didn’t compromise sensibility in keeping it short.
I guess it comes down to this. Go ahead and microwave my story, but please set aside the afternoon to enjoy the sliced turkey and corn niblets. I hope that what I have to share takes a little time to digest. :)
It’s Not About You: Throwing the Red Flag on Unsportsmanlike Conduct
Campus Cabana swim team members celebrate a narrow home-meet victory against a rival pool. photo: Steve Killian, Towson, MD, July 2011
A string of penalties and punishments associated with unsportsmanlike behavior, both locally and nationally, has crossed our news feeds recently, sparking spirited debates in backyards, school parking lots, and online forums. The point of discussion: Are school systems and professional sports organizations going too far in penalizing individuals and teams for showing emotional expressions of pride and elation?
Let’s get one thing straight right away. It’s not about you, Opponent. The fist pumps, the Bernie dances, the high fives — They have absolutely nothing to do with any of you. The winning team (have we forgotten that there will be a winner and a loser in such games?) is excited because they succeeded in a tackle, a score, a win. It’s not about you. It’s all about them.
This is yet another case of the establishment of a rule losing its original focus and purpose and falling into the hazy, gray area of interpretation, largely swayed by emotional parents and community members of opposing teams at the local level, and by over-controlling, power-hungry officials at the professional level.
A Little History Lesson on Unsportsmanlike Conduct in the NFL
- 1984: A rule was established in the NFL to curb individual or group celebrations that were “prolonged, excessive, or premeditated.” This was often referred to as the “Mark Gastineau Rule,” as it was believed by many that the rule was created to stop him from performing his signature “Sack Dance” every time after he sacked an opposing quarterback.
- 2004: NFL owners agree to institute an excessive celebration penalty in an attempt to eliminate premeditated celebrations. The excessive celebration infraction, considered unsportsmanlike conduct, carries a 15-yard penalty. Such choreographed performances like Terrell Owens pulling a Sharpie marker out of his sock or Joe Horn uncovering a planted cell phone are the target of the new rule. Any infraction ruled flagrant will constitute immediate ejection from the contest.
- 2006: Individual players are prohibited from using foreign objects or the football while celebrating. They are also prohibited from engaging in any celebrations while on the ground. A celebration shall be deemed excessive or prolonged if a player continues to celebrate after a warning from an official. Previously, players were not prohibited from using props or celebrating on the ground. Reason for the change: Promotes sportsmanship. [New NFL Rules for 2006]
- According to the NFL Digest of Rules, rule no. 32 defines unsportsmanlike conduct as any act contrary to the generally understood principles of sportsmanship.
Just last week, Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens was tagged with the same penalty for flexing his muscles after a spectacular run against the Arizona Cardinals. Apparently, the refs believe such acts are excessive taunts that are antithetical to the “generally understood principles of sportsmanship.”
So let me get this right: In the game of football, it is sportsmanlike to talk smack on the front line, grind my opponent into the turf with full force, push and shove after an intense tackle, and go helmet-to-helmet spewing insults and threats, but it is unsportsmanlike to flex my muscles after I did something I’m proud of?
At the local level, it is even worse. Earlier this week, the Perry Hall High School boys soccer team (Baltimore, MD) celebrated at the end of the game after scoring a winning goal. Parents of the opposing team (Dulaney High School) complained that the celebration was both “lewd” and “inappropriate.” The principal agreed with the parents of the opposing school and suspended the team from playing in any more games for the season — including playoff and championship matches. (Read/view the complete report HERE from the Perry Hall Patch.com site.) He announced yesterday at a press conference that he decided to reverse his decision about forfeiting the rest of the season (the team plays the semifinal championship game today against Blake at 2 p.m.), but he stands behind his original statement regarding disciplinary action against the team for “inappropriate behavior.”
Now, the Baltimore County Public Schools website provides the following statement from the Office of Athletics regarding sportsmanlike behavior:
The Baltimore County Public School Interscholastic Athletic Program is committed to promoting the proper ideals of sportsmanship, ethical conduct and fair play at all athletic contests. We oppose instances and activities which run counter to the best values of athletic competition in order to insure the well-being of all individual student-athletes. We support high standards of good citizenship and propriety, along with regard for the rights of others.
I agree with this statement. I hardly think anyone can find fault with such a general statement that promotes sportsmanship and strong athletic competition. Nowhere in this statement does it suggest or infer that players cannot be excited about the successes they experience on the field.
As a father of a child who has played team sports, however, I have seen winning teams making it personal, thrusting their arrogance into the faces of their 9-year-old opponents and focusing on the losing team’s weaknesses and challenges. Any act that is directed toward an opponent in a derogatory manner or that is focused on the failures of an individual player or team is, in all ways, unsportsmanlike and should be called as such.
But we’re not talking about such acts here. This is about end-of-game joy, personal-best celebrations, and emotional shouts of YES! for a job well done — none of which have anything to do with the opponent. Not a single one.
In our everyday lives, we celebrate personal accomplishments all the time, don’t we? A promotion, a personal best for a 5K, even answering the right question in a trivia game. We recognize and encourage demonstrations of pride and elation as strong contributors to personal wellness, self-confidence, self-esteem, and overall happiness.
Our cheerleaders promote and encourage emotional outbursts from our fans. Million-dollar scoreboards and video displays in our larger stadiums rally us to chant, cheer, and get involved. Even in other sports, like golf and baseball, fist pumps are expected, anticipated, and enjoyed by their fans. Yet, the very players for other sports who are on the field making the plays are restricted from doing anything that even resembles a fraction of such elation. It just doesn’t make any sense.
We are sending the wrong message to our sports teams, both professional and at the local level. Instead of discouraging and penalizing pride and celebration, we should be telling the refs and the parents on the losing side of the field to realize that this is part of the game. This is what you sign up for when your child plays a sport where there are winners and losers.
It’s not about you, folks. Leave the winners alone and let them celebrate their successes. Your time will come soon enough, and when it does, I hope you celebrate with the same pride and elation.
Contradiction: The First Days of November
photo: rus vanwestervelt, october 29, 2011, glyndon, md
The snow last weekend that just barely touched us in Baltimore but devastated the New England region was the best and most timely contradiction for me in all ways. Yesterday, over at Maryland Voices, our True Tuesdays prompt focused on Contradiction and the opportunities we are suddenly presented when such situations arise. What do you do when something goes against your routine, defies your everyday expectation?
The contrast existing between the old and brilliant autumnal leaves against the virgin white snow allowed me to get off this annual surge of creativity, just long enough to really appreciate what this time of year means to me.
Historically, this has been my most creative period, whether that be with a camera or a pen in hand. The touch of golden melancholy is just strong enough within me to stir the muse in wondrous ways, and I almost always emerge in December with a batch of pre-polished creativity that was as intense as it was joyful to make.
Seeing the reds and yellows sprinkled with white only strengthened that surge in me to write and create. But it was because I stopped and took the time to absorb it, let it play around inside a bit, work its most unusual magic in this most magical season.
We need to do more of this, this slowing down and taking the time to absorb the existing beauty around us. Our trains move too fast through this life, a shortened ride for many it seems these days, and I can only beg you enough to realize the joys and pleasures that await simply by slowing down, even just a little.
These contradictions in our lives allow us the chance to do exactly this. They are the hiccups that make us catch our breath, focus for a moment on something we did not expect, ponder a little color and splash of virgin white to spin the wheels in the other direction and make us see that we don’t need to wait until the end of the journey to realize glory and beauty.
It’s here right now, all around us, all the time.
Back in the Bliss
photo: rus vanwestervelt, 23 october 2011, river chase farm, aldie, va
Well, I did it again, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Not only did I leave Facebook and Twitter, I stopped my usual rounds of catching up on the latest football news, rankings, and predictions on the local news sites, not to mention ESPN, SI, Foxsports, and other national sports sites.
Finally, I feel like I can breathe again.
Not that I don’t miss chatting with my closer friends on Facebook, I do. But I imagine that, in the coming days and weeks (and it’s already started to happen with some friends), I will be finding other ways to catch up with them.
You know. In person. Face to face. Real time.
I don’t knock the social networks. They serve a purpose that can be both fun and meaningful for all kinds of relationships. But I know that, for me to be fully present for my family and still focus on my writing and photography, something had to give.
Already, I am writing more (I am here as well, which says a lot), my focus is better when spending time with others, and I am not glued to my phone or my computer.
None of these are any surprise to me. This is my third or fourth separation from Facebook, and each time I experience the same bliss.
Why even go back, then? Why return to the social-media time suckers that compromise the very things that bring me the greatest joy and allow me to live a most-balanced life?
I have no idea.
Maybe this time I won’t. I know that my book sales might suffer, and I might not have as many people see some of the photos that I have taken. As well, I know such a move goes against every marketing strategy that’s been devised in the last three years for artists who are trying to launch some kind of name for him or herself.
But my time with my family is too valuable to sacrifice for social networking and trying to “make it” as a writer and artist. I write and I take photos because it is in me; it is a part of who I am, and I cannot stop it any faster than I can stop breathing (thanks, Lacey, for that so many years ago). What is NOT a part of me is the whole selling of my work and playing some kind of game that gets me running with the creative consultants and gurus of the craft. Not when it comes at the cost of sacrificing time with my wife and children.
God bless the social gurus and network marketers. We need them, and they help so many undo the myriad blocks that have kept thousands and thousands from living a more creative, inspired life. I have family members and friends who are burning incredible new virtual paths in the connections they are making. These people are changing lives, and we are better off for their tireless energy and spirit.
Me, though? I need to do that networking at a distance. I will let my words and my images speak for me, and I will never turn down an invitation to converse about the things we love. But I cannot sell you me using social media as a device to further my passions. I just can’t.
So, you’ll see me around here more frequently. I’m still writing for Write Anything, I’m still working hard with my creative partner Cara Moulds at Cool Blue Souls on our daily Smash365 prompts and book reading club, and I’m wrapping up my book Cold Rock for release before the end of the year. I am looking for new venues for my photography, and I have a full line of competitions and deadlines for shorter writing submissions that I’m sending out on a biweekly basis. All of this is possible with the focus that is returning, thanks to my break-up with social media.
I’ll see you here and other places online and in print as well, but most importantly, I’d like to see you in person. Let’s hold on to the very things we should never stop cherishing: the embracing of life’s fragility, hand in hand, as we go along our way.
The Five-Minute Photo Shoot
photo: rus vanwestervelt, goucher college, towson, md 9/26/11
My drive home from school today took less time than I expected, and I had exactly ten extra minutes before I had to pick up my oldest daughter to take her to the gym.
Given the fact that I was still five minutes from home, that left me with exactly five minutes of spare time. What could I possibly accomplish in such little time?
I stopped at Goucher College (near my home), went in the direction of the pond on campus with camera in hand, and remained receptive to what might present itself to me. I was struck immediately by the brilliance of a single fruit dangling from a dying tree. After shooting five frames in under a minute, I wandered further down toward the pond. I disturbed a grasshopper in the tall weeds, and I followed him to a blade of grass (below). Fired off another 8 shots (took two of the tall grasses blowing in the wind), returned quickly to my Jeep, and headed home.
I was a little disappointed. I arrived home a minute early. I wondered what else would have presented itself if I had spent that minute at the pond?
photo: rus vanwestervelt, goucher college, towson, md 9/26/11
We Are Writing More Than Ever, Or Are We?
On the surface, I should be really excited about this ever-evolving global explosion with writing. In fact, the statistics are nothing short of staggering.
In February 2011, The Nielsen Company documented over 156 million public blogs in existence. In 2009, 1.5 trillion text messages were sent or were received (dhtech.com). According to Facebook’s statistics page (accessed at the time of this posting), there are more than 750 million active users, people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook, and they share more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) each month.Twitter, by its own claim, boasts that members are now posting in excess of 200 million tweets a month.
People are using writing and social networking to communicate more than ever before.
Consider the following passage from Jeremy Norman:
If we go back to the end of World War II in 1945, the year in which telegraphic use peaked in the United States, Americans sent 236 billion telegraph messages that year, seeming a huge number relative to U. S. population at the time. With respect to the amount of information transferred, numbers may be deceptive since telegraph messages were charged for by the word, and tended to be exceptionally brief, while the amount of text, audio and video information that can be transferred or exchanged in one minute on the Internet is incomparably greater than the amount of text that could be exchanged in the same time by telegraph. Because of the availability of increasingly rich and diverse information over wireless networks, the nature of telecommunication has changed. As of May 2010, cell phones, used by about 90% of American households, were used more for data, such as text messages, streaming video and music, than speech, and during 2008 to 2010 the average number of voice minutes per user in the United States fell. In his book, The Information. A Theory. A History. A Flood (2011, p. 395), James Gleick quotes Jaron Lanier dramatically describing the scale of the ever-accelerating flood of electronic information we are experiencing: “It’s as if you kneel to plant the seed of a tree and it grows so fast that it swallows your whole town before you can even rise to your feet.” (“From Cave Paintings to the Internet” http://www.historyofinformation.com/narrative/index.php)
Finally! People are writing more than they are speaking to communicate! After all these years, the written word has become king of the communication hill!
Or has it?
It seems to me that quantity has nothing to do with quality here, and in fact — all this “writing” is actually working against the production of any meaningful and significant written correspondence or communication that will survive a cache-clearing data dump of trivial information. We’re so caught up in instant communication in under 160 characters that we’re skimming the waves of our life experience. We are losing our ability to kill the motor, sink in the waters of who we are and what we feel, and share that with others in a meaningful way.
One staff writer for the Independent , who wrote an article on the state of love letters in the 21st century, posted this question last February:
Do people send each other love letters any more? Or is the exchange of amorous declarations between partners now forever delegated to the insulting greetings card, the fluffy-bunny message in newspaper classifieds, the wholly unpassionate email, the economical salutation of the text message?
The documentation of our lives, as only we can accurately record it through our own experiences, is becoming nothing more than an eWhisper, a vanishing trademark of communication that leaves us with nothing but the news, so immediately reported that we have little time to think or react to an event before the next breaking story pushes the previous one from our memories.
I am not totally discouraged. I was reduced to tears this summer when a fellow writer/teacher taught us all the art of digital storytelling, and how we can empower our students to do the same in the classroom. The integration of writing and images can be a powerful thing, and such historical documentation in a simple, digital format was not possible just a few years ago.
But I think this is the exception and not the rule. Even before programs like iMovie came along, there wasn’t a whole lot of non-digital storytelling going on either, which leads me to believe that the technology explosion is not necessarily killing all aspects of writing; it is simply revealing the ugliness of our society’s negligence in writing authentically.
We can change that. We can help each other turn off our motors and sink into the genuineness of our being.
The first step is to recognize the absolute importance of our existence, as well as the documentation of our understanding of the world around us.
Hard? I guess so. As Tom Hanks says in A League of Their Own, “It’s supposed to be hard; the hard is what makes it great.”
So who’s with me? Let’s accept that challenge, turn off the tweets and the updates, and sink a little. Then write.
I wonder what we’ll begin to discover . . . .
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