Reading

My brother emailed me today, and was teasing me about reading Lord of the Rings (see my sidebar.) "Why?" he asked facetiously. "Didn't you see the movies?" I'm actually reading it for [only] the third time. I think it is a superbly written book, and reads more like history than fantasy.

However, I'm finding myself bogging down and reluctant to pick it up these last few days. I think that with Israel's incursion into Gaza and the growing civilian casualties, I am having a hard time stomaching reading about epic battles between good and evil forces, and war as the dominant paradigm.

I picked up a copy of Natalie Goldberg's Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writer's Craft at a used book store on Christmas eve. (I can't keep from going out and doing last minute shopping on that day, no matter how firm my resolve.) Tonight I abandoned LOTR (for the time being) and I read the introduction, where Natalie apologizes to her readers for misleading them down the writers' path in her first book Writing Down the Bones.

I had to laugh. I read -- and was profoundly moved by -- both Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind a number of years ago. It was during a period of time that I have little desire to revisit. I was teaching in a program that was being dismantled all around me and struggling with changes that were being wrought in the field of education by the advent of "the standards movement" (the precursor to No Child Left Behind.) I was in a fog of grief over the death of my daughter, and trying to be a good mother to my other two young children. It was also during that time that my father died suddenly. And I had two unplanned pregnancies (using contraceptives, just in case you are inclined to comment on that,) both of which I chose to terminate. There were days when I came home from work and literally curled up in a dark room with my fingers in my ears to block out all sensory experiences. My well was dry.

That's when I turned to writing practice, first Natalie Goldberg's books and then to Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. I got up every morning and wrote for 30 minutes. I filled notebooks with a lot of unhappiness (or so I remember; I can't bring myself to go back and reread any of it now.) I drew a lot of little sheep, because I really wanted to pursue fiber arts.

Thankfully, something shifted. The fog lifted. I fell back in love with teaching. I found ways to integrate my desire to write and to create art, with the rest of my life. So it is amusing to pick up Natalie Goldberg once again, and have her say, "Don't go down this path! It will only lead to suffering! All art leads to suffering!!"

I'll keep reading. I might even write a book review when I'm done.