Writing is a solitary activity — something you do alone. But the solitude that is needed is not only physical but emotional and spiritual. The quiet place that we must find is not just a room in the house or a writer’s shed but a kind of fortress inside of us that shields us at least temporarily from the hubbub around us. These days, unfortunately, the hubbub is full of anger. The air is full of I am right and not only are you wrong but you are bad. Sometimes the anger seems justified by the acts and words of others but it is still anger. It is anger, loud or quiet, explicit or subtle but still divisive. And sometimes the anger is indistinguishable from hatred (as in I wish to do you harm). Is it wrong to want to retreat from an atmosphere that feels poisonous? Anger is a gas that seeps into your being and builds up pressure until it is released in deed or word. And there you are in the hubbub. I look outside and see one- hundred- year old trees and you would think that peace in a setting like this would not be hard to find. But the anger has managed to seep in through the Internet, the television, the newspaper, the magazine I buy for the cartoons and the fiction. And I keep thinking of that fortress inside of me that I must build, at least for a while, before I am eaten up alive from the inside out. There is something that is refreshing, healing, about being silent and in silence. It doesn’t have to be total silence. There is music and the quiet conversation with one or two friends who are also intent on preserving something precious. The silence that is needed is a protected space where the tender seed of kindness can grow again. What is it about kindness that is so vital to creativity? Is it that writing is a giving, after all, a giving that depends on some form of kindness? Is it that kindness is what the world most needs from you and so you must do what you can to nurture it inside you? But it hurts not to be in the midst of it. I will be forgotten. Did you ever think that anonymity, not being special, would be one of your greatest fears? You need to be willing to be alone in order to write. Not just physically alone but spiritually. You need to be willing to build that inner fortress where your kindness will be protected from the siege of anger that surrounds it. Your mission through your work is to unite, never, never to divide (even when your cause seems right), and you must protect and grow the kindness needed for that task. And you must be willing to bear the solitude needed for the work and the loneliness too, at times. But there will be peace too and eventually the certainty that you are not alone.
July 30, 2016
June 23, 2016
Intuition
[From a lecture delivered to alumni of Vermont College of Fine Arts on June 18, 2016]
Flannery O’Connor in her book “Mystery and “Manners” uses the term “the habit of art” to refer to a certain way of seeing that the artist must cultivate. The term does not refer to an activity as much as the writer’s attitude, an internal disposition of the writer from which the writing emanates. Writing out of the “habit of art” becomes, in her own words, “something in which the whole personality takes part — the conscious as well as the unconscious mind.” Like other habits, the habit of art becomes rooted in our very being.
The best way that I can describe the habit of art in my life is to say that it consists of the development of intuition through mindfulness. Intuition is that gift-like quality that gives our characters and our stories their uniqueness – the spark that makes our work part of our deepest self yet something new. Intuition is that which brings into being what only we can create. Because there are so many concepts that are sometimes covered by the word intuition, I would like to define it as a way of seeing a truth that is not dependent on words. It is, to use, T. S. Eliot’s words, a “sudden illumination”. Except that sometimes, an intuition can come to us little by little, slowly over time.
Here is an example of an intuition. The philosopher William James wrote in his Will to Believe: “If this life is not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricality from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a fight.”
This feeling that James had, that life is a fight in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success is an intuition that I share. Deep down I feel that this life is a fight that can be won or lost. It feels as if what I choose to do, what I choose to believe, whom I choose to be, matters. This “feeling” is a certainty. There is no doubt in me about this. Moreover, this certainty is not just a feeling, it is a way of seeing and being. Because I have this intuition, I am thinking of you, my reader, differently right this very second then if I didn’t have it.
What I have found most helpful in learning to listen to my intuitions (part of the habit of art) is the mindful investigation of my beliefs so as to uncover the intuitions that lie behind them. And the place where mindfulness is most fruitful is in the patient and kind, the non-judgmental, honest awareness of who I am. By who I am I mean not only the person I truly am and am meant to be, but also the person I hide from myself and the person I would like others to see. Â A mindful, but compassionate awareness of who I am does not flinch from from what Mona, one of my favorite characters in The Memory of Light, calls “the uglies.”
For intuitions are the lotus flower of the mind. Their roots are in the muck, the smelly dirty bottom of our being. They grow in the rich soil of shame and secret desires, in the emptiness of regret for the wasted opportunities to be brave or to love. The more we penetrate with mindfulness into the hiddenness of our “uglies”, the more beautifully unique that our intuitions and the characters and stories they inspire will be.
We cannot force an intuition to come to us. I realize that  what you most want and need for our work is ultimately not up to us to bring into existence. But even though we cannot force an intuition to come out, we can knock on the door, we can even open the door and in a gentle, tender way let the child in there know that we are there, that we are present and that we would like to play. This presence, our constant, loving presence to all of existence, including the voices and visions inside of us, is what the habit of art is all about.
Ultimately, the habit of art is part of a habit of being. Our unique characters and the stories that are meaningful to us and others will come from intuitions that arise from a habit of art that is embedded in a habit of being. And if you were to ask me what quality in that habit of being is more conducive to a habit of art from which intuitions will arise to enliven our work, I would have to say that it is humility. Because we have no control over them, intuitions are all about humility. The humility in our habit of being will percolate all the way up to characters that are us but also separate and unique beings. And what is this humility? It is neither an inflated or a deflated appreciation of the role of our creative work in our life. We have a gift but so does the carpenter who builds a simple, useful chair. I like the way Vincent Van Gogh, the guy who sold maybe one painting during his life, described this habit of being. Writing to his brother after a severe breakdown:
“So I remain calm and confident through all this, and that influences my work, which attracts me more than ever, just because I feel I shall succeed. Not that I shall become anything extraordinary, but “ordinary”, and then I mean by ordinary, that my work will be sound and reasonable, and will have a right to exist and will serve to some useful end.”
May 8, 2016
Ruth Arguelles Stork
Mother’s Day – 2016
Te escribo en Español porque es la lengua que siempre hablaste. Cuando pienso en ti mamá, me viene a mente más que nada todos los sacrificios que hiciste por mi. Desde el primero, cuando decidiste en aquel convento de Monterrey donde habÃas llegado por haber dado un “mal paso”, cuando decidiste que no me darÃas por adopción como se habÃa planeado. Desde ese momento juntamos nuestras vidas. Regresaste a Tampico a vivir con mi abuelo y que la gente dijera lo que dijera. Cuando seis años después te casaste con Charlie Stork y el, al adoptarme, me dio su nombre. También ese fue un sacrificio que después de muchos años pude reconocer como tal. Charlie Stork tenÃa veinte años de edad más que tu y te casaste más que nada para darme un padre. Qué es un sacrificio? Mucha gente piensa que es hacer algo para el bien de otros, algo que nos duele, algo que si no fuera por esa otra persona que amamos, no lo harÃamos. SÃ, asà fueron tus sacrificios, pero también la palabra significa “hacer sagrado” – convertir un acto en acción con una transcendencia más allá de lo ordinario. Transformar algo que duele en algo sagrado es amar, es amor. No hay pérdida porque el bien que hacemos por el ser amado es nuestro propio bien. Y ese sentido también tuvo lo que hiciste por mi. Aceptar tu soledad cuando me fui lejos a estudiar – primero a Spring Hill College en Alabama y luego a Harvard en Massachusetts, fue un sacrificio, quizá el más grande que hiciste. Uno de los dos, tú o yo, tendrÃa que hacer un sacrificio. Yo me podrÃa haber quedado cerca de ti y sacrificar lo que veÃa como oportunidad. Pero te pedà a ti que hicieras el sacrificio de dejarme ir. Se que te hizo feliz ver mis pequeños triunfos pero también se que estar sola te causó mucho dolor. Y luego por fin, el último y más grande sacrificio cuando la enfermedad no te permitÃa vivir sola, cuando sabÃas lo difÃcil que serÃa para mi cuidarte, entonces hiciste por mi ese otro sacrificio. Le pediste a Dios que te llevará con El, y El acepto tu sacrificio. Y ahora después de tantos años te recuerdo y en pequeña forma te doy las gracias. Cómo podré yo responder a tus sacrificios para que no se pierdan, para que tu amor siga viviendo en el mundo? No tengo otra forma sino tratar de amar a los que Dios pone en mi camino, tratar de ser útil con mi pobre escritura. No fue en vano, Mami, lo que hiciste y tu soledad y tu dolor son semillas que viven en mi alma y algunas ya florecieron y a las otras les doy el agua de la tristeza y alegrÃa para que crezcan. Perdóname si a veces me olvido de tu sacrificio en mis pensamientos pero, aún asÃ, aquà lo llevo siempre corriendo por mi sangre. Gracias Mami.
