5 Min read

1 book rec

Writing meditation

Writing features

*

*

Why do we do what we do and what is it all about? A few know the answers and when you probe further you realize the answers aren’t answers; the sages leave answers in higher hands. They accept the mysteries.

You can sense strength and conviction, most powerful when coupled with humility and faith. Faith has a bad rap but it shouldn’t. We all have faith. What is it you choose to put your faith in?

What began in 2014 as a letter to friends to update them on how it was going when I took my children out of school became a way to express what was on my mind, what I was reading, who I was reading, what I was learning, things that bothered me, nights of unrest.

When I find reprieve, I share that, often poetry and philosophy, but simple activities too. A long walk. Folding laundry after reading Marie Kondo. Coming home with Homer’s Odyssey after finding the book in the snow.

The TreeHouse is not unlike Virginia Woolf’s room or Stephen King’s closed doors. And, the TreeHouseLetter is writing meditation. Is there such a thing? I don’t know. Writing has been meditation for me. Often the process of uncovering or discovering, the process of putting thoughts and ideas down takes me to a place I hadn’t expected, helping me to see. 

Two years ago I pulled together the key messages for THL. And I categorized more broadly what it is I write. Yet, it is beyond categorizing, because I go where I must go and write and discuss what is top of mind or inescapable.

*

What of others who have gone before? Surely they have answers. I have a special place for philosophers and thinkers and teachers. I have something to learn from them. What can they tell me and how can I be better? As a parent, as a wife, as a friend, a writer, a worker, a laundress, a cleaner, a mentor and coach, and, and, and. . .

How can I be better. Period. I don’t have a natural inclination towards goodness. Some do and I’m not one of them. I resent rules. I resent filial expectations. I resent traditional and menial tasks. I resent the demands of parenthood, domestic chores, much of it. I resent.

Resentment is heavy to carry. So are frustration and anger. I’m learning to set them down. I’m learning to embrace the broken and damaged, the wear and tear of the house I live in, of the car I drive, of the body that’s carried me these 55 years, of the processes of living. These are not the problem. These are what it means to live.

When my children were young I grew to resent the chores, the chaos, the schedule, the mess, the meals. All this work and little I wanted to do.

Where was my out, my work, my meaning? I failed to find meaning in the mundane. Looking everywhere else.

But books, thinkers, others had been there before and could guide me, could provide insight. There was an answer.

A mentor and advisor said the drive to find meaning in my writing was palpable. The stoics help me understand. Buddhists help me understand, the sinologist John Blofeld and his books, helpful and powerful insight into living. The idea of every interaction as a moment for kindness and compassion. Could that be possible?

*

What are the main goals of THL for me? To explore what it means to be human, to connect with others across time and continents and cultures. To see how the written word and the spoken word have captured that, especially by those who do so in a mesmerizing way. To do so not just to be effective but to be elegant. This music in prose is not unlike the music in song. The classical composition does not need words to be understood across humanity. Harmony and discord, complexity and resonance, in and out of key, in and out of whatever. Yin and  yang.

I am not young enough to know everything. Oscar Wilde wrote. Gosh how I love this. I lived this. In my twenties I was fearless and knew what I needed. And as I grew older that hubris that confidence that sense of invulnerability faded. To look upon my child is to realize mortality, to fear for something outside of self.

*

What did I write and why? Of horses and handwriting of prophecy and process, of coaching and learning. The insatiable desire to learn, to grow, to be and to understand. I read the forward by Harold Kushner and the preface by Viktor Frankl of Man’s Search For Meaning. Written in nine days and meant to be anonymous, his slim account of a concentration camp has been in 100 printings and millions of copies, more than any of his other books.

If man can find meaning in Auschwitz, then he can find meaning anywhere. Frankl contends that life is not about pleasure, as Freud argued, it is about meaning. He is surprised, this initially intended anonymous work did so well, so far beyond what he imagined and all the other works he’d written.

Yes, meaning. So what meaning have I found to be lasting? Kindness. Love. Compassion. Listening. Finding beauty and truth in everyday people and things and actions. These are so common as to be clichés though they are true. This does not make it easy. Because I am not kind and I am not loving. I continuously flail about and fall short.

THL is about the music in prose, poetry for emergencies and how to be a better reader, writer, and ultimately how to be a better human. How does writing do that? Let’s start with reading. Choose the best books you can, the best authors. And write as a daily practice, just five minutes to start.

Words and thoughts you put in your head are like the food you put in your body. You will digest them inside and they will settle in even if you don’t want them to. You cannot avoid their effect so make a conscious decision what you consume. Life is too short for reading bad writing.

And there’s all kinds of writing. That’s part of the search. If you can and prefer real people to writing, good on you. Look for those who inspire you. Learn from everyone. There’s no rainbow without the rain and the sun.

TreeHouseLetter is about what it means to be human. I’m here trying to figure it out, searching for meaning. I find it and it’s gone. That does not mean I stop.

*

*

FOOTNOTES

*Viktor Frankl. Man’s Search for Meaning. My youngest child read this book over the summer and had borrowed a copy from her mentor and advisor. A copy sits on my top shelf and it’s been a while since I read it. Reflecting on the thrust of my writing to find meaning, I grab it and read the preface and forward.

Man’s Search for Meaning is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to each person’s life through one of three ways: the completion of tasks, caring for another person, or finding meaning by facing suffering with dignity.

*

Frankl observed that among the fellow inmates in the concentration camp, those who survived were able to connect with a purpose in life to feel positive about and who then immersed themselves in imagining that purpose in their own way, such as conversing with an (imagined) loved one. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity.

Wiki summary

*Writing Features–link on my site in the header toolbar–evolved from years of writing and my studies: just what makes writing good and why am I drawn to certain works. Writing I’m drawn to has a natural rhythm or cadence which I highlight in the Music in Prose. The words which soothe us and uplift us I share in Poetry for Emergencies. And as a writer with an insatiable curiosity for craft, I share discoveries and hard-won lessons in Toolbox, which will include rumination on the sexy semicolon and helpful M dash to mainstays of style and composition to improve writing immediately.

*Key Messages: Bringing Writers and Readers Together.

1. I believe in always learning with a bit of fun.
2. I believe in story and music, that the power of words and notes artfully arranged can inform us, transport us, show us what it means to be human.
3. Learning is about more than knowledge; it is founded on how to be a better person.
4. What do leaders, thinkers, and writers—great humans—have to share? What have I learned from them?
5. Books have the power to transcend time and place, to connect readers. What makes certain works lasting?
6. Read and listen to those who inspire us.
7. Writing is thinking on the page. Beautiful writing is an organized whole of well-crafted parts. Start with a single sentence.
8. Learn to write. Become a better writer and a better thinker. In the process become a better human.
9. Aim to be genuine, sincere. Shed self-indulgence, posing, and pity to brave the stalwart and narrow path to say and write what you know, see, and feel.