{"id":17868,"date":"2016-04-01T13:24:54","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T17:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=17868"},"modified":"2016-04-01T13:24:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-01T17:24:54","slug":"all-of-a-piece-a-piece-of-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/all-of-a-piece-a-piece-of-all\/","title":{"rendered":"All of a Piece, a Piece of All"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Broken<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Broken promises Project 365(3),” by Keith Williamson (user “elwillo”) on Flickr<\/a>. Used under a Creative Commons license.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

All good things are one thing. Sunsets, schools of philosophy, cathedrals, operas, mountains, horses, poems — all these are mainly disguises. One thing is always walking among us in fancy-dress, in the grey cloak of a church or the green cloak of a meadow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G. K. Chesterton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Where Is God?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s as if what is unbreakable—
\nthe very pulse of life—waits for
\neverything else to be torn away,
\nand then in the bareness that
\nonly silence and suffering and
\ngreat love can expose, it dares
\nto speak through us and to us.<\/p>\n

It seems to say, if you want to last,
\nhold on to nothing. If you want
\nto know love, let in everything.
\nIf you want to feel the presence
\nof everything, stop counting the
\nthings that break along the way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Nepo [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and, from whiskey river’s commonplace book<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

People Like Us<\/strong>
\nfor James Wright<\/span><\/p>\n

There are more like us. All over the world
\nThere are confused people, who can’t remember
\nThe name of their dog when they wake up, and people
\nWho love God but can’t remember where<\/p>\n

He was when they went to sleep. It’s
\nAll right. The world cleanses itself this way.
\nA wrong number occurs to you in the middle
\nOf the night, you dial it, it rings just in time<\/p>\n

To save the house. And the second-story man
\nGets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
\nAnd he’s lonely , and they talk, and the thief
\nGoes back to college. Even in graduate school,<\/p>\n

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
\nAnd hear great poems lovingly spoken
\nBy the wrong professor. And you find your soul
\nAnd greatness has a defender, and even in death you’re safe<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Robert Bly [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Japanese Shape<\/strong><\/p>\n

The way it forces you to look
\nwatching your step
\nso as not to turn your ankle
\non a rock
\nor step into water nearby<\/p>\n

The way it turns the torso
\nthis way and that
\nview after view
\nspaces between spaces
\nand spaces between<\/p>\n

The way it slows you down
\nstep after step
\nno skipping between
\nthere is no short cut
\nto the edge of this garden<\/p>\n

The way it swirls the vision
\ninto brown and black
\nand green and light with
\nsound in the air until
\nonly a blanket remains<\/p>\n

The way it stops the mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Harry Palmer [no alternative source located<\/em>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neither from whiskey river<\/em>, nor from its commonplace book<\/em>:<\/p>\n

For fifteen years now, at the beginning of every writing workshop, I have repeated the rules for writing practice. So, I will repeat them again here. And I want to say why I repeat them: Because they are the bottom line, the beginning of all writing, the foundation of learning to trust your own mind. Trusting your own mind is essential for writing. Words come out of the mind. And I believe in these rules. Perhaps I’m a little fanatical about them.<\/p>\n

A friend, teasing me, said, “You act as if they are the rules to live by, as though they apply to everything.”<\/p>\n

I smiled. “Okay, let’s try it. Do they apply to sex?”<\/p>\n

I stuck up my thumb for rule number one. “Keep your hand moving.” I nodded yes.<\/p>\n

Index finger, rule number two. “Be specific.” I let out a yelp of glee.<\/p>\n

It was working.<\/p>\n

Finger number three. “Lose control.” It was clear that sex and writing were the same thing.<\/p>\n

Then, number four. “Don’t think,” I said. Yes, for sex, too, I nodded.<\/p>\n

I proved my point. My friend and I laughed.<\/p>\n

Go ahead, try these rules for tennis, hang gliding, driving a car, making a grilled cheese sandwich, disciplining a dog or a snake. Okay. They might not always work. They work for writing. Try them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Natalie Goldberg [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Was anyone wearing a mask? Was anyone anything? This wood of witchery, in which men’s faces turned black and white by turns, in which their figures first swelled into sunlight and then faded into formless night, this mere chaos of chiaroscuro (after the clear daylight outside), seemed to Syme a perfect symbol of the world in which he had been moving for three days, this world where men took off their beards and their spectacles and their noses, and turned into other people. That tragic self-confidence which he had felt when he believed that the Marquis was a devil had strangely disappeared now that he knew that the Marquis was a friend. He felt almost inclined to ask after all these bewilderments what was a friend and what an enemy. Was there anything that was apart from what it seemed? The Marquis had taken off his nose and turned out to be a detective. Might he not just as well take off his head and turn out to be a hobgoblin? Was not everything, after all, like this bewildering woodland, this dance of dark and light? Everything only a glimpse, the glimpse always unforeseen, and always forgotten. For Gabriel Syme had found in the heart of that sun-splashed wood what many modern painters had found there. He had found the thing which the modern people call Impressionism, which is another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G.K. Chesterton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The visible and the in-<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some people move through your life
\nlike the perfume of peonies, heavy
\nand sensual and lingering.<\/p>\n

Some people move through your life
\nlike the sweet musky scent of cosmos
\nso delicate if you sniff twice, it\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

Some people occupy your life
\nlike moving men who cart off
\ncouches, pianos and break dishes.<\/p>\n

Some people touch you so lightly you
\nare not sure it happened. Others leave
\nyou flat with footprints on your chest.<\/p>\n

Some are like those fall warblers
\nyou can\u2019t tell from each other even
\nthough you search Petersen\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Some come down hard on you like
\na striking falcon and the scars remain
\nand you are forever wary of the sky.<\/p>\n

We all are waiting rooms at bus
\nstations where hundreds have passed
\nthrough unnoticed and others<\/p>\n

have almost burned us down
\nand others have left us clean and new
\nand others have just moved in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Marge Piercy [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Broken promises Project 365(3),” by Keith Williamson (user “elwillo”) on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.] From whiskey river: All good things are one thing. Sunsets, schools of philosophy, cathedrals, operas, mountains, horses, poems — all these are mainly disguises. One thing is always walking among us in fancy-dress, in the grey cloak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"'All of a Piece, a Piece of All': Chesterton, Piercy, et al., on the one uncountable thing","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,5,50,251,3477,4159],"tags":[66,788,1395,2690,2813,3752,4286,4287],"class_list":{"0":"post-17868","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-06_writing","9":"category-language-writing_cat","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-fantasy-06_writing","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-gk-chesterton","14":"tag-marge-piercy","15":"tag-robert-bly","16":"tag-natalie-goldberg","17":"tag-the-universe","18":"tag-mark-nepo","19":"tag-harry-palmer","20":"tag-one-thing","21":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Ec","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17868"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17877,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17868\/revisions\/17877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}