llbwritesto.me

You can say that now. Because I felt like writing to you. And you decided you felt like reading.

Energy

Almonds, Pizza Dough, and the Cessation of Reading

By

Dear—,

I am going to stop reading.

I tried this out in December. Books I’d put on hold at the library, then stocked here for the holidays, went back today, unread. I am going to make a thing of not reading, because of the almonds.

Once, I almost died from almonds. Okay, that’s a little dramatic. I could breathe. But my hands swelled so much that I had to take off rings to save my fingers.

Another once: Very distinctly, a few years back, the thought came into my head—”Reading will save your life.” In some (dramatic) ways it probably has.

Today, I made pizza dough, which I have not done in a long, long time. It was something to do with Sandra’s Together post, about cooking. But it was also something to do with my walk, on which I thought about the almonds and how good they were until they weren’t good.

Reading is good. It is so good that I ask us to emphasize it at Tweetspeak. A lot.

But reading has become almonds for me, in its way. What happened with the almonds was this: I was enjoying, immensely, a stint with raw food “cooking” and there were all these delicious recipes for almond dips. I made them and ate them. And ate them. And ate them.

Then, one day, I was suddenly removing rings to save my fingers. For three years after that, I went without a single almond, until I got brave and began to introduce them little by little back into my life.

For the better part of this year, I’ve been trying to figure why I am so overwhelmed. There are, doubtless, multiple reasons, but it has suddenly occurred to me that reading is one of those reasons. After all, I start revolutions out of my reading notebook, and revolutions are costly endeavors, even if they are inspiring and fun.

It’s more than that, though. Reading fills my mind with ideas upon ideas upon ideas.

I recently put all my ideas and to-do’s onto a condensed list, categorized by home, business, etc. The condensed list filled eight pages. Each item on the list has its own set of associated ideas and to-do’s. Almonds! (I can almost feel the ideas and to-do’s cutting off my mind’s circulation.)

Then there’s the pizza dough. So many delicious things sit by unexperienced when my life is filled to the brim with ideas and no time to process them or bring them to life. I just don’t have the energy for putting my hands to things. But I also don’t have the energy to live inside my own head with all those unprocessed ideas and to-do’s. So there I am: no pizza dough days and not much progress on my ideas and to-do’s, either.

Throughout December, I did not read any books (except, which surprised me, a book I’d been needing to edit and hadn’t been able to approach yet). I did read poetry. And I will continue to do that, because poems are more like experiences and less like idea-generators. I will probably follow along with the Tweetspeak book club titles, too. Of course I will read the posts at Tweetspeak and participate in the community commenting. I might not read much email. I might not read articles, whether online or in magazines I have at home. I can’t say how long this will last, though I have a vision for a somewhat alternate life for the coming year.

One of our 2019 themes at Tweetspeak is going to be the Renaissance, as in the time period, but also as in being a “renaissance person.”

Books, oddly, keep me out of the loop from other parts of life—it’s not just that I don’t clean out my cabinets (I did this over the holidays, in lieu of reading!); I also don’t do other things, the way a good renaissance woman (or man) would. Music, writing, art, math, sport, and such, sit by unexperienced, along with that pizza dough I’ve been telling you about. (It was delicious, by the way.)

Now, when Megan asks for our reading lists each month, I am not going to have much to say, unless she allows comments such as, “For the past few weeks, I read the world through my fingertips: pizza dough, mosses on my walks, pastels on paper, piano keys and flute.”

Is this its own kind of revolution? Maybe. Though I don’t feel the need to plan it out or make it happen or create even one associated to-do list.

But how about you, Dear—, is there something that has become almonds in your life? If so, I wish for you the wisdom to discern that and put it aside… if that’s what you want to do, if only for a while. Almonds are good, sure, (I had some roasted ones today), but so is pizza dough, homemade. And I do so want that for you.

As always,

L.L.

 

Callie, Energy, and Rocktopia

By

Dear      ,

They are charging $91 a ticket for Rocktopia.

I saw it for free.

“Free” might be the most you’d want to pay for the show. I’m not saying that to be unfriendly. Honest. It’s just, well, a question of energy.

Recently, I published a snippet of author Callie Feyen’s annotations journal. She annotates as part of the writing process, to help her decide: should it stay, or should it go?

Watching Rocktopia for free was a cool thing to be able to do, barring the mundane parts (which were remarkably many) and the just-didn’t-gel parts (which were also remarkably many). Only two songs in the whole production seemed of interest to the people on stage.

Everything else lacked energy. Or it felt like energies-in-conflict.

I kept thinking about Callie during the show. Callie is one of the most honest-with-herself authors I’ve met. Somehow it’s a combination of her personality and perhaps the particular MFA program she attended. When she annotates, she is asking a lot of “Why” questions that get at the question of energy—a lack of it, or energies in conflict. She’s not afraid to do that. It can mean dropping whole chapters (or whole articles), in the end. It can mean reversals. Often, she discovers something she had no intentions of discovering.

Today, I am thinking about me.

Lately, I’ve lacked energy, Dear——. Or perhaps it’s just energies in conflict, within my own soul. I feel like Rocktopia!

The two good sections of Rocktopia seemed completely embodied. Suddenly, these weren’t just singers. They were players of parts, deeply felt. And they were in sync with each other. A common love of the message, the moves, and the sounds made these sections absolutely riveting. The rest could have fallen away.

If I had it to spare, I would have paid $91 to see the parts that the cast loved. They were that good.

Today I am asking myself, “Why?” and “What should fall away?” I am looking to be in sync. It feels like a time of massive change, even though on the surface everything appears to be doldrums.

And you, Dear——? What are you feeling right now? I do wish you the will to annotate your life, if that’s what you need. And, then, the sometimes harder step: to act on your discoveries. Or, if you are just singing along, embodying life with great joy, I’ll sit here in the afternoon sun, looking out over the river, and listen. Together, we could feel free.

As Always,

L.L.

30 Days, 30 Poems Eco-Challenge Merge

By

Dear      ,

Right now I am cleaning the dining room. I mean, I was cleaning it this morning, and I’ll get back to it soon.

If you were here (in my dining room), you’d see me sorting through a stack of handwritten lists and copying them over onto one new list. I make a lot of lists. Things get done. Things don’t get done. I make decisions about what undone things to carry forward. I drop things. I celebrate the finished tasks with a momentary smile.

For the 30 Days, 30 Poems Eco-Challenge merge, I decided I need a list. You might not find this very interesting. Or you might. (I just found it very interesting to see what one of my teammates has chosen to do for the Drawdown Challenge!)

Okay, so here’s my Challenges list. Undone. And done. Maybe once I do some of them, instead of “checking them off,” I’ll add links to where I found resources to help me accomplish them. That could serve as my “done” check mark.

Buildings & cities

• I will spend at least 30 minutes researching other Drawdown Buildings and Cities Solutions

• I will complete an online energy audit of my home, office, or dorm room and identify my next steps for saving energy

• I will spend at least 15 minutes researching heat pumps to see if installing one makes sense for my home/building

Electricity Generation

• I will watch a video about methane digesters (also commonly known as anaerobic digesters)

• I will spend at least 15 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of Micro Wind

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of biomass

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of wave and tidal energy

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of geothermal energy and consider investing in this technology

Land Use

• I will spend at least (___) minutes finding out if anyone is working on perennial biomass projects in my region and how I can get involved

Food

• I will spend at least 30 minutes researching other Drawdown Food Solutions

• I will spend at least 30 minutes watching videos and/or reading about the environmental benefits of silvopasture

Challenges Already Completed Before The Eco-Challenge, As Part of My Ongoing Interest in Life

• I will enjoy meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge

• I will use smaller plates and/or serve smaller portions when dishing out food

• I will spend at least (___) minutes learning about the need for more regenerative agriculture

• I will buy from organic and local farmers who have made the decision to not use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers

• I will start a compost bin where I live

• I will spend at least (___) minutes researching the impact of my diet to see how it contributes to deforestation

Dear——, my 18-y-o daughter has chosen just three challenges. You could choose just one, if you want to join us. The number doesn’t matter. It’s about choosing doable things that might interest and inspire you.

Also, I’m going to write poems to go along with my challenges. Being creative feels important as a part of this. My daughter? This is what she made. Video is her art.

Today, whatever challenges you are facing, I wish for you a creative response of your very own. Art, beauty, creativity. This is what helps us stay energized—and hopeful.

As Always,

L.L.

Ailing Bees, Energy, and Missing The New Yorker

By

Dear      ,

I’m wondering. Do you know what a skep is? I did not know until Alexander Langlands told me.

He wanted to make one for the bees.

I wanted to go hear Rachel Aviv yesterday and tell you about it here and maybe in an exclusive on Patreon. Rachel has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2013. I have never been a staff writer at The New Yorker, and I had questions for her.

I did not have questions about skeps or bees, but this is the beauty of reading—it expands. And I know you know this about reading, but I just wanted to say it, because it’s sort of like something else I know you know—listening can expand your world in ways you hadn’t expected. This is why, when Alexander Langlands was talking about bees and skeps, though I didn’t have questions about either of these things, I thought maybe I’d take the time to listen.

Okay, technically, reading is not listening, and I promise I have also been listening in the ordinary way. So last night I went to Rachel’s house—not Rachel Aviv, mind you, but a dear friend who’s been letting me park in her driveway so I can stop getting $30 parking tickets (due to the car disaster, I vowed not to park the remaining car in the driveway until the wayward maple could be trimmed, and The Town has refused to listen to my pleas for a street parking exception due to extenuating circumstances, and it feels very sad not to be listened to and to feel alone and uncared for by The Town, but Rachel graciously let me park in her driveway, and so last night we had tea, and I listened.)

The skep, first made as early as the 8th century (mid medieval times) is fashioned of willow or hazel, or from straw that’s been twisted and bound by cane. It looks like a 60’s up-do you might expect to see on one of the B52s. Just add bees, and you’ve got honey.

If you listen to Rachel, you’ve got honey, too. Maybe if you listen to anyone at all, you’ve got it. There is something strangely magical (or, at least surreal) about concentrating on the voice of someone and listening with every part of your being, not just to the words, but to the sounds, to the person, and the way they are moving and the look on their face.

Rachel Aviv looks kind of intense, while at the same time looking almost medieval (not that the two need be mutually exclusive). Maybe it was the particular photograph and the way her hair and the neckline of her blouse reminded me of watching the show Merlin. She looked like Gwendolyn, but with fair skin and fair locks and maybe blue eyes, though it can be hard to tell eye-color in a black-and-white photo.

It was snowing in the morning yesterday; regardless, I still thought I’d go see Aviv. The day unfolded with more snow and more snow, and then the sun made a late appearance, the roads cleared, and all seemed well with the world. I could have gone.

Alexander Langlands, when I listened to him, told me something I hadn’t known about bee-keeping. Many of the big keepers kind of forget about the “keeping” part. They feed the bees sugar water, which is a sub-par form of energy. It makes the bees sick over time (I’ve been meaning to say, Dear———, sugar will make you sick over time, too), but it means the keepers can take all the honey they want and push the bees to keep working.

I’ve been working really hard lately. Well, I work hard all the time. But lately I’ve been working even harder, to meet some increased demands in my personal and business life. So, after Monday, I was still tired yesterday. My car was at Rachel’s. I did not have energy to go hear Aviv and ask my questions under the gaze of her intense eyes. I am sure I would have enjoyed listening to her, because I’m learning that there’s honey to be found in the act of creating an extra-special keeping-space for someone else’s words.

But.

There is a way in which we can run our lives that is like living on sugar water. And I thought of Langland’s last statement regarding skeps, and keeping, and bees… “The craeft in beekeeping is not in the meddling of the bee’s affairs but in the preparation of their home.”

In my home, there is actually not even one copy of The New Yorker, though I think it is such a cool magazine because it’s been around for a very long time and even Dr. Seuss had a friend there, once upon a time. I thought about this. I thought about the skep I needed, in order to keep writing to you. It did not include going to see Rachel Aviv—at least not yesterday.

What do I wish for you, then? A skep of your own. With the heartiness of a honeyed life. No sugar water. Because I want you to be healthy for as long as you call the 21st century your home.

As Always,

L.L.

Writing Love, Energy, and Empty Sandboxes

By

Dear      ,

You might remember this. There are people who do.

Five years and four months ago, I quit blogging. I wrote about that at Jane’s. The departure was, to a great degree, about energy—energy I no longer had. And the years have gone by since then, and so much has changed, and so much has not.

What has changed? Read about that, too, at Jane’s.

What has not changed…

I love to write to you. If that’s all I could do, I would probably be quite satisfied. Writers have their ways.

Today I am tired, and all the things I’ve been thinking to share with you are folded into their sleepy little beds in inaccessible parts of my brain. My sandbox is quiet and empty. I think it’s important to go with that. So I’m respecting the absence of energy and sharing someone else’s words with you instead.

She wrote it for me, when she heard I was blogging again. I like to call this “friendship writing.” It’s one of my favorite kinds. Thank you, Maureen, my friend.

Energy is more than E=MC2.

Picture it: the yogi displaying
not one whiff of sweat as she
mind-bends her way to Nirvana;

or the green-eyed poet stringing
i ams among six stanzas she will
later commit to mime and memory;

or the race-walker powering up,
post-workout, on granola bars
created with all-natural ingredients

harvested from her garden of greens
denied such chemical transformations
as might be recalled from the sixties;

or the scientist springing the door
to her media lab, announcing
the antithesis to the synthesis that’s

just come clear; or the once-full-time
blogger envied by all who know
that to read her is to love her both

in and outside the virtual world
that she codes in 1s and 2s before
translating her HTML into terabytes

of prose and poems her fans will
twitter and tweet so long as they
get to play in her sandbox too.

—Maureen Doallas

For you who have come to my sandbox today and found it quieter than you expected it to be, I wish you the ability to listen to your own rhythms and go with them. I wish you, too, a little friendship writing.

As Always,

L.L.

Survivors, Salmon, and Energy

By

Dear      ,

Did you know I’m a survivor? I am.

It’s a long story. No need to go into that here. It’s been written about elsewhere, and so maybe you already know.

To survive, you need to know how to fight. There is a place for resistance. The salmon know this! Oh, how they fight their way upstream, for the sake of survival. They would rather die fighting than die floating in a frictionless place.

You could say I am a very good salmon. I would rather die fighting than floating. (You make the T-shirt, I’ll wear it. Deal?)

What has come less naturally to me is learning to move with the currents. To discern what calls for resistance and persistence, and what calls for letting go.

Yesterday, I saw a body at the side of the road.

In all my years (and at this point, they haven’t been few), I have never seen a body at the side of the road. In fact, besides at the occasional funeral, I have not seen a body anywhere at all. Not on a beach. Not on a woodland trail. Not in my back yard. Nowhere.

Remember the thundersnow? Just a few days after the windstorm, the thundersnow took down even more trees. Many of the roads around here are unpassable. Visibility is less than it could be. Pavements are slippery. People feel out of sorts.

Is that what happened? Did a driver, lost and confused and out of sorts due to one more detour, come whipping around that curve and, in the low visibility, hit a person, who became a body on the side of the road?

I don’t know.

There were a few cars ahead of mine, approaching that bend where the body lay. Likewise, there were a few cars sitting at the rise of the hill, coming from the opposite direction. People were out of their vehicles. The sun was setting, the shadows were long, the world of pines and snow and winding roads was hushed.

I saw someone reach down to touch the body. Maybe to see if life still pulsed. I saw several people gently placing coats, one coat after another, over the motionless form. One person seemed to be on his phone. The look on his face was “911.”

Part of me, the curious part, the horrified part, the I-must-know-if-he-(she? they?)-survive part wanted to stay and continue to watch the story unfold. Part of me wanted to console. But there were many people already on the scene.

I turned the car around. In my rear-view mirror, I saw red lights. Sirens called: life is at stake, life is at stake, life is at stake!

Then my daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat in a deep silence, and I made our way home, with many detours along the way. We went three towns over, being lost on the winding back roads. We followed the setting sun. We moved with the currents, feeling our way. We were each, I know, hoping the body would be more than a body as darkness came. We were hoping for a survivor.

Though our talk was muted, I noted that it was so remarkable that the people at the side of the road had not tried to move the person. (You can hurt a person irreversibly if you move him when he’s badly injured. Well-meaning people trying to help someone who is physically broken have caused more harm than good by the force of movement at the wrong moment. I’m sure you know this. But I’m not sure my daughter did. I wanted to find the smallest way to console her: smart people had been discerning.)

When to fight? When to float? When to resist? When to move with the currents, and when to move against them?

This is the work of wisdom.

Sitting here, looking out the windows towards a sky filled with quiet sun, after a week of detours and traveling unknown roads, I know what I want more than ever: I want you to survive. And thrive.

So, if you are floating, and that is not going to help you survive, I wish you the option of a necessary fight. Or, if you are fighting, and that is causing you or others more harm than good, I wish you the will to move with the currents. Whatever physics you need today, I want it to be yours.

As Always,

L.L.

Thundersnow, Energy, and Creativity

By

Dear      ,

Today the world is magical.

Yesterday it was thundersnow.

Today it looks like Walt Disney sent his team of animators to transform the maples, the pines, the mountains beyond the river, anything that sits on the ground or rises up into the air—white, and white, and white, thick-painted, delicious white. The sky is the barest blue. The soft, amorphous clouds are fleece blankets spread across the heavens.

I have never been in a thundersnow storm. Only 6.4 (how do you get half a storm?) thundersnows are reported each year in the U.S. My eldest daughter looked that up last night, after, for the first time ever, we saw lightning in the dark and driving snow.

Lightning!

I wish you could have seen it.

There was no audible thunder. The snow is a buffer. So you would have seen the lightning, but you would not have heard the thunder. It was there, though.

Have you read the book The Geography of Genius? I love that book. It helps explain thundersnow and it helps explain the wind storm that destroyed my windshield (via the beautiful maple who now stands transformed in this magical today-world). It helps explain why someone just my height (tiny lady) can reach the top of the Rose of Sharon tree, which is otherwise inaccessible to me. (She is bent so low in the layers of snow that are leaning her towards the little rock garden.)

Of course, Eric Weiner speaks of none of these things directly. He talks about wars, famine, plague, and, surprisingly, the genius that came of them. It’s complicated. Athens, Rome, Edinburgh. Conditions had to be right. But part of these conditions were a few very unwelcome elements that upended “the way things are.”

When I saw the galaxy of glass-stars inside my car, I knew that at least one part of my life had been upended. For some reason, as much as shattered glass troubles me, it also attracts me. It looks like so many millions of diamond boats upon a silver-blue sea. I asked my younger daughter to please take a picture. The next day, I started this blog. I felt such an unexpected surge of creativity. I can’t explain it.

Thundersnow is so rare because of the way the air currents need to organize themselves. You need a certain kind of void, a certain kind of cold and colder air collision, a certain kind of physics. Then the energy exchange begins, and—lightning!

If thundersnow were a city, we’d have to call it Athens, Rome, Edinburgh. Nature’s rare and beautiful genius.

But back to you and me.

If you are feeling a certain kind of void today, or cold and colder air colliding, if lightning is striking and upending “the way things are,” I wish you a galaxy of stars in return—creativity and genius that otherwise would not have been yours.

I know it doesn’t always work that way, and I also know that we still have to deal with the destruction. But I can wish upon a glass-star for you. And so I am.

As Always,

L.L.

No Email and the Energy of Envy

By

Dear      ,

Have I told you I don’t work on Wednesdays? It’s true, in the sense that I don’t do any of my ordinary work on Wednesdays. And I don’t do email, except on the rare occasion. I adapted the no email idea from someone I admire a great deal—someone I have occasionally been envious of, who has (mildly, or maybe differently) come back to email in the way I have come back to blogging. (You thought I was immune to envy? Not possible—remember our discussion of my humanity yesterday. And not preferable, either.)

There are times I’ve been envious of my dear Jane Friedman as well—someone who has been so marvelously good to me. I think she would find this amusing (the envy part, not that she’s been good to me).

I believe these realities are quite telling. Because there are people I am definitely never envious of. Like, I’d have to say, I am not envious of the dentists, shopkeepers, and academics who Neil Gaiman met in refugee camps—people who just want to go home, to reclaim lives that are lost forever and places that are destroyed. From what he said, I think he’ll write about their plight in his next Neverwhere book, when he gets to it. At the moment, Neil is envious of writers who are not show runners, because they can write their next Neverwhere’s in quiet settings where their wives are not getting grumpy about (still) being in South Africa with a writer who is grumpy because he is show running for the BBC’s version of Good Omens, instead of writing.

I was not envious of Neil. I sat in that room of 200+ people and I felt so grateful that I was not the one on stage, talking about the death of my very best friend, because someone publicly asked me to do this, and that’s what famous writers get to do—sit onstage and answer questions that are often too personal—because when you are a famous writer, people can get to feeling they own you and have the rights to your heart and soul. In fact, you don’t even have to be a famous writer to experience this. You could be one of the brightest people living in poverty, who, because of your brilliance, becomes almost a kind of “commons” and brings on the kind of devotion (especially because you are poor) that ultimately tries to take you away from you.

There are a lot of other people I’ve occasionally been envious of (and this has led to things like jealous poem stacks), and there are a lot of other people I have never once been envious of.

The envy is a form of Energy. I wouldn’t give it up.

But here’s the thing. Energy goes somewhere, always—or at least it wants to (think of all that energy bound up in atoms, just waiting to explode). I know I should have paid better attention in Chemistry class (I envy those who did), but I was a bit bored and didn’t realize I might need to be able to understand the concept of energy exchange someday, so I could write more intelligently to you about the green-eyed monster. I really dislike that phrase, and I don’t know the history of it, which suggests I should have paid more attention in Metaphor Class too, but it’s a useful phrase. And I think it can be parsed without the aid of history.

Green = plants (often) = life = energy.

Eyed = seeing = wanting = energy.

Monster = unbridled physical power = energy.

If the green-eyed monster were in a test tube, it could have been much more interesting in Chemistry class. All that energy in a little glass tube, just waiting for our brilliant ideas about what to mix with it or where to pour it!

There are things I do when I experience the energy of envy. First I get irritated. Sometimes I even get angry. Occasionally, I’ve thrown myself an indulgent little pity party.

But, since I am a scientist at heart, it doesn’t take long before I start making hypotheses about my envy, as experienced in relation to any given person or group. The hypotheses spring from simple questions. (Why her? Or him? Or them? Why now? Is it logical? Of course it is, in the sense that everything has a logic! So. What’s the logic? Does it hold up? What is it asking of me? Or, what am I asking of it? What should I do with this energy besides squander it by simply pouring out the test tube—and hurting myself or someone else in the process?)

As I write to you today, I am not sure what to wish you. I believe it was Julia Cameron who taught me the tremendous revelatory power of envy. She didn’t discuss plant life, per se. Or test tubes. She may have mentioned monsters. Should I wish you any of these?

Maybe I’ll just wish you the power of questions (and the hypotheses that can spring from them, and the positive actions that can then follow), the next time envy comes your way.

As Always,

L.L.

P.S. I’m sorry I never got back to telling you about why I don’t email on Wednesdays. It wasn’t very writerly of me to not come back ’round to that. Another time, yes? Or maybe we can discuss it somewhere, sometime, over tea.

P.P.S. I quit Physics class even though I had an A+ in it, because the teacher was so mean to a girl I didn’t like (she was mean, too) but who I was envious of because she was so beautiful and popular and had nice clothes, so I understand that I should have probably placed Energy in Physics class rather than Chemistry class, but I wasn’t in Physics. And, anyway, Chemistry and Physics have a good deal of overlap. And I’ve always liked test tubes.