Halfway Home

So I can’t believe it, but I’m halfway through my sojourn in the clouds. I feel so sad and happy about this. Of course, almost nothing turned out the way I thought it would, but it has been a momentous time nonetheless. I’m still not sure why. Let me see if I can recount some possibilities.

From a spiritual practice perspective, it’s been quite revealing. Since I was on a writers’ retreat before coming here, I’d already had seven days of settling into a retreat vibe before I got here. That’s no small thing. To have come from the hustle-bustle of life into this sanctuary of clouds and loneliness would have felt much more abrupt. It’s been amazing, a gift, stunning, to slow down with my practice and really look at it.

I’ve been doing a lot reading, specifically about the practice I do. For every practice, there is a view. Knowing the correct view (context, philosophy), obviously, makes the practice make sense. When you have to guess about the view, it’s like studying an unnamed language. You might master it, but have no idea where or why to use it. So this meditation retreat has been about connecting with view. And practice, of course. Because spending all your time on view without practicing is just a conceptual enterprise. And practicing without considering the view makes for a bit of a willy-nilly experience.

And during this time, I’ve been able to hear talks by my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He sheds light on my practice like the sun striking the ocean.

On the writing tip, it’s been up and down. But, again, a profound and amazing gift to be able to spend this much time, hour after hour, day after day, with the book I’m trying to write. This close focus creates equal parts clarity and confusion. The clarity comes from having time and, most of all, mental space, to consider what I’m trying to say. The confusion comes from looking so closely at what I’m doing. It’s like staring at a painting so long that the image turns into a bunch of dots. You can’t see what it is anymore. So staying with this process of intermittent bouts with clarity and confusion has been very interesting. Scary. And also wonderful. Like today, for example. I sat down to work in the late morning and suddenly it was 3PM. It’s amazing when that happens with writing. The time disappearing and all.

If it’s of interest, here is the introduction to the book, “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.” As it stands now. Subject to change at any moment. Any comments or suggestion would be wildly appreciated.

When I arrived, I had written about 20,000 words and I knew that the introduction was probably okay, but the rest was kind of like gibberish. Words without a view. Many lovely paragraphs of useful, relevant information, but no sense from one section to the next.

This seems to happens to me when working on a book. I gather a pile of relevant stories, insights, and suggestions and just sort of slop them together. Each one makes sense on its own, but they don’t make sense all together. So this is a big problem. Then I have to stop writing and attempt to impose structure. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t come up with structure in advance. So I’m a little used to this, but it’s no less terrifying to be up against a book deadline with a bunch of words that may mean you’re well on your way OR that you’ve accumulated a bunch of crapola.

But in the last week, structure has sort of started to come and that’s where I am now. I’m up to about 35,000 words and have decided that the order they were in was not the right order. So I’m in the midst of deconstructing the manuscript, fingers massively crossed. I’m still not sure it’s going to work and I won’t know until I’ve finished taking it apart and putting it back together again. A few days ago, I printed the whole thing out and cut it into paragraphs. I stapled together paragraphs that had to go together (that were telling a particular story, for example). Then I laid all the stapled together pieces on the floor and labeled them with the heading of where I thought they should now go. Fortunately, I had some feline assistance.

I don’t know where it’s all going to end up, but this has been the most wonderful writing experience of my life. Difficult, yes. Very. Much doubt and sadness at my own lack of understanding. But I’ve had little whiffs of the muse, of something being written through me and not by me. This is the best one can ever, ever hope for.

May it be of benefit. For goodness sake, already.

categorized in: creativity, dharma