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Burnout

Oolong Pearl, Waterfall Baths, and Pools of Peace

By

Dear——,

It is a singular strangeness when a writer cannot write. I’ve been feeling singular (or strange) all summer. It’s not that I’ve written nothing at all. But there’s a lack of significant momentum. So I go nowhere, again and again. Yesterday I decided that is okay.

And, last week, I decided to coach myself. Beginning with emptying. Once, to a friend on Facebook, I called this process “making pools of peace” and she told me this image inspired her (enough to begin creating her own).

I’ve been considering my absolute love of water lately. I’ve been considering the need for pools of peace. There is the bath, and that is worth something. In fact, if I were more ambitious (or more willing to write about bath time), I would even propose a book to a publisher out there somewhere. I would travel the world to experience peace in tubs like the one I recently saw in a glitzy travel magazine. It overlooked Lake Luzerne, from the privacy of a hotel room perched high above that body of water. The window over the tub was from edge to ceiling—a full view of exquisite blue and mountains and serene clouds. The tub was square and large and reminded me of a Roman bath, except it was private (the way I like my baths to be), and it had its very own waterfall, which I thought might be worth traveling the world for (and writing a book about, along with many other baths I might find here and there and everywhere).

But, I am going nowhere. Which is, I understand, an actual choice.

So I look into my tea. Another, strangely to me, I just realized, body of water. Maybe this is part of why I love it every single day. The tiniest pool of peace, I can hold right in my hand. Peace with names like silver tips jasmine and oolong pearl, thé à l’opéra and, when I am feeling like a long-ago memory of Harrod’s, earl grey.

What they forget to tell you is that coming by a pool of peace is not always a peaceful process. I discovered this yet again (for I really do know this and have for a long time), when I engaged in my coaching assignment: emptying. I have been creating pools of peace around the house, by emptying corners and misused bookcases and inexplicable proliferations of paper and goodness knows what else across my lovely red oak floors.

My “nesting” daughter cried when she came home and saw the result of my hard and (for me) needful work. A waterfall’s worth of tears. And my shirt and shoulders were bathed with her sorrow over my pools of peace.

Yes, they forget to tell you this: one woman’s peace does not always come easily where another is involved.

Today I have been in my room all morning, looking out at the river, with my jasmine tea in hand. The sky is blue, the mountains bluer. Maybe later I will take a bath. Last night my daughter presented me with two kinds of ice cream she bought with her own money. Little vanilla and chocolate peace offerings. It was something she could do, and so she did it.

For peace comes dropping slow…

That’s William Butler Yeats, whose “Innisfree” I memorized earlier this summer, when my “nesting” daughter had to face a fear that’s been lifelong: the fear of doctors and hospitals. “Tell me the poem, Mommy,” she’d said, as she walked laps and laps around the recovery area after the absolute terror of a delicate surgery had been faced, and peace, slowly, returned to her world.

I will arise and go now…

Laps. Water. Pools. Tea. A morning overlooking blue. Poetry. Emptying. It’s all a-swirl in my mind, but I can feel the promise dropping from the veils of the morning:

And I shall have some peace there…

Dear––, in your own morning space today (which has now given over to afternoon), I wish you pools of peace, a kind of Innisfree, with its nine bean rows and its midnight all a glimmer and its noon a purple glow. Of course I hope that coming by it won’t require a waterfall’s worth of tears. But, if it does, then I wish you tea, as well. Silver tips, jasmine, pearl, or whatever feels most comforting when you hold it in your hands and close (or open) your eyes to the blue or grey outside your window. I hope you feel it—peace—in the deep heart’s core.

As always,

L.L.

On Silence, Burnout, and Writing (Anything at All)

By

Dear      ,

Not long ago, I wrote at Jane’s place, and told people I’ve been burned out. I wish I could say it’s completely gone. It’s not. Like I said at Jane’s, “I still haven’t worked out all the details.”

As a high-capacity person, I find it particularly perplexing to feel so “low capacity.” The upside is that it makes me more compassionate in all kinds of interesting ways. The downside is, of course, that I keep hitting the edge of my capacity far sooner than seems logical. Then I feel sad. Then that makes me feel even more burned out. Not a very fun cycle, as you can imagine.

In my notebook, now, is a word map. It’s my possible path. It’s a wager. And definitely an exploration. I don’t recall if the word silence is in one of the little circles (I put all my words in circles, unlike some mappers), but it should be.

In another circle is the word voices. And I’ve been keenly listening to the ones around me. Today, I listened to a 9-month-old boy fussing to his mama in the grocery store. I stopped to chat with him for a moment and got the cutest smile in return. His mom looked happily proud and a little grateful. I was glad to have been privileged to listen to their voices.

So when I say that silence should go into one of my circles, I’m not talking about the absence of sound (though that has its virtues too). I’m talking about the observation of poet Michael Longley, who noted in an interview with Krista Tippett that he’d gone without writing poems for ten years. He thought he might never write another poem. To his surprise, he eventually did. “Silence is part of the enterprise,” he concluded.

When I write to you, it asks of me not to be silent. Some of you help support my writing (for which I’m grateful), and I wonder if it seems odd to you when I am silent, as if that’s not part of writer-me. But it is. For, in silence, I find myself again. I find you. I find the little boy fussing to his mama. Today, I even found a poem.

In another circle on my word map is green spaces and blue spaces. I got the idea from Laura Brown’s upcoming workshop. Every day I am trying to give one of those kinds of spaces as a gift to myself. Sometimes it’s a walk by the river. Sometimes it’s just a walk in the rain. The back porch has beckoned, and amidst its simple setup (folding chair, portable coolers that have convenient cup holders, cement floor), I can watch the greening of my tiny, tiny yard.

I’m not sure if the blue and green spaces will ultimately soothe my burnout, but today the little herb garden, with its sage and oregano beneath the weeping forsythia, brought my heart a small gift of words.

With thanks to Michael Longley,
quoted within

“Silence is part
of the enterprise,”
he says.

It is true.

Here, you know
that the new sage
tastes like earth—
not just any earth, but
yours at the edge
of the little herb garden.

Here, the pine
is in conversation
with the maples,
while the wood-winged bushes
come alive. Here

the “forgeries”
fall away, the fruited
green tea feels like silk
—liquid and full—
that touches every part
of your open lip.

And you write
your first word
in what feels like

forever.

Today, Dear——, I wish for you silence, if that’s what you need. After all, it’s part of the enterprise of being a writer. And, if you’re not a writer, I suspect it’s part of the enterprise of being almost anything that takes a good deal of heart and soul, so I wish it for you. Tip it to the lip of your heart, and soul.

As always,
L.L.