Glug, Glug, Glug

In Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez says “the world is ever so slightly but uncorrectably out of focus, that there are no absolutely precise answers.” In therapy last week, his collection of essays About this Life surfaced in my conscience – in particular, "Learning to See" and "Informed by Indifference." On revisiting, the introduction "A Voice" weighed heavily on me too – these are the etchings of a writer's identity being imprinted on me, pathways being carved for me to explore on landscape as a means to identity, nature as a latticework for empathy. He reads differently now than in 2001, when I encountered him (and About this Life) in English 279 or 273 or some such. There had been other markers - Stephen King in grade school, my 8th grade teacher introducing me to a Minnesota writer named Tim O'Brien. I wonder if he knew I'd go onto encounter The Things They Carried in every class imaginable.

Funny, my intention here was to vamp on The Artist's Way and morning pages, but I just fell down a hole wondering if it was in fact English 279 or 273 where I first read Lopez. Started googling old professors, found that one whom I admired quite a bit has a book out, got it on Libby. Point is, lately I haven't been free-flowing. Things are stopped up, hesitant. Sure, I've written twice on that subject before, and now I'm sinking deeper. Whatever it is, maybe I can push through it. There's a real desire to anchor my thoughts to other texts and experience and doing that in earnest can really drag something down. Somewhere along the line, the detail has usurped the experience. My writing has always been focused on small moments of change, even if they're happening in big situations (a Hoverround tumbling into the Grand Canyon comes to mind). But I have to return to Barry Lopez, because it's remarkable how much of his writing oriented my brain. There were some other transformational texts.in that course (it was English 273, Literature of Fact, which is no doubt a shortening of Literature of Non-fiction or something, and is amusing in light of some of the more ... virtuosic passages in Lopez's memory collection), the most prominent that come to mind are it's where I was first exposed to Derrick Jensen and Encounters with the Archdruid's third part, which put into my head the travels of John Wesley Powell through the Colorado River and its canyons.

Of course, to be a writer once must write, and in that area I've fallen short lately. The reasons merit exploration, even if they are the same as everyone else's. Some of it is exercise: physical and mental dedication or lacking in place of a work behemoth that demands attention. That it's such an easy choice to make vexes me. Yes the work provides security, and at least a future of paid-fors if not the imagination to plan or see what will be paid for. Is that derealization? Buckle in for the ride, your choices will bring us there but you'll only be observing the drop from over there?

A dog outside now, on the street, loses its mind barking and brings me back.

I can't commit to writing morning pages. The discipline is overwhelming at the moment, the technology inadequate. Why is everyone so busy nowadays? But maybe Sometime Pages are that secret, that less precise answer that could fit me and provide a little more practice.