{"id":24264,"date":"2021-03-19T11:23:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T15:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=24264"},"modified":"2021-03-19T11:23:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-19T15:23:50","slug":"to-tell-your-life-and-your-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/to-tell-your-life-and-your-self\/","title":{"rendered":"To Tell Your Life and Your Self"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Parking Lot Meet-and-Greet, February 2021,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page<\/a> at <\/em>RAMH.) Recently I learned a new phrase (although the concept was familiar): “vernacular photography.” I’ve always thought of such photos as just, y’know, <\/em>snapshots… but a whole aesthetic, a mystique — and, probably, an academic discipline — has developed about them over the years. The gist is: not self-consciously “arty”; amateur(ish); casual\/unposed; everyday\/mundane; etc. During the time of COVID-19, I imagine, conscientious photographers — however “amateur” — have been composing their casual\/unposed and everyday\/mundane group portraits rather more carefully.]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

To see that your life is a story while you’re in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well. It’s unwise, though, to think you know how it’s going to go, or how it’s going to end. That’s to be known only when it’s over. <\/p>

And even when it’s over, even when it’s somebody else’s life, somebody who lived a hundred years ago, whose story I’ve heard told time and time again, while I’m hearing it I hope and fear as if I didn’t know how it would end; and so I live the story and it lives in me. That’s as good a way as I know to outwit death. Stories are what death thinks he puts an end to. He can’t understand that they end in him, but they don’t end with him.<\/p>

Other people’s stories may become part of your own, the foundation of it, the ground it goes on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Ursula K. Le Guin [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

List of Seemingly Unrelated Observations<\/strong><\/p>

Distance, like snow, melts.<\/p>

Walking in deep yellow leaves
drowns out your voice.<\/p>

Thinking, like a deep river,
eats canyons in your mind.<\/p>

Everything blossoms that can.<\/p>

Everything blossomed that could.<\/p>

Stars move if they are airplanes;
wish fast.<\/p>

You can live in as many places
at once as you need to.<\/p>

For some places you don’t go anymore,
you still have a key.<\/p>

A dream brings you into morning
one way or another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Grace Butcher [source: unknown<\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have an uncomfortable mind; be strange. Be disturbed: by what is happening on the planet, and to it; by the cruelty, and stupidity humanity is capable of; by the unbearable beauty of certain music, and the mysteries and failures of love, and the brief, confusing, exhilarating hour of your own life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Kim Addonizio [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Story Can Change Your Life<\/strong><\/p>

On the morning she became a young widow,
my grandmother, startled by a sudden shadow,
looked up from her work to see a hawk turn
her prized rooster into a cloud of feathers.
That same moment, halfway around the world
in a Minnesota mine, her husband died,
buried under a ton of rockfall.
She told me this story sixty years ago.
I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true but it ought to be.
She was a hard old woman, and though she knelt
on Sundays when the acolyte’s silver bell
announced the moment of Christ’s miracle,
it was the darker mysteries she lived by:
shiver-cry of an owl, black dog by the roadside,
a tapping at the door and nobody there.
The moral of the story was plain enough:
miracles become a burden and require a priest
to explain them. With signs, you only need
to keep your wits about you and place your trust
in a shadow world that lets you know hard luck
and grief are coming your way. And for that
—so the story goes—any day will do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Peter Everwine [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoreau got up each morning and walked to the woods as though he had never been where he was going to, so that whatever was there came to him like liquid into an empty glass. Many people taking such a walk would have their heads so full of other ideas that it would be a long time before they were capable of hearing or seeing. Most people are blinded by themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(John Cage [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Untitled<\/strong><\/p>

The story is written, the slip of a girl is loosed
And her life folds over. Against the cold, the waiting
For the what will happen. The next. Wonderful
Awful. The blonde in a chemical bath.
The story keeps on being written
As a woman who waits for never to happen
As an empty wall waits for light to form a bridge
And under it, a mass of open eyes,
Waiting for the awful eventual. Now?
And yes is what is said. Then here it is, the box
We live in where the crazy face of the day looks back
At the closed eye of the night looking in.
A boy of four comes in as an example
Of where the door of life is left open for a moment.
Time tumbles hour after hour until it’s morning again.
Some glass is for looking through, some is for seeing back.
Every outline is a cage one way or another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Mary Jo Bang [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that I now understand in some small measure why the Buddhist goes on pilgrimage to a mountain. The journey is itself part of the technique by which the god is sought. It is a journey into Being; for as I penetrate more deeply into the mountain’s life, I penetrate also into my own. For an hour I am beyond desire. It is not ecstasy, that leap out of the self that makes man like a god. I am not out of myself, but in myself. I am. To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

[Image: “Parking Lot Meet-and-Greet, February 2021,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page at RAMH.) Recently I learned a new phrase (although the concept was familiar): “vernacular photography.” I’ve always thought of such photos as just, y’know, snapshots… but a whole aesthetic, a mystique — and, […]<\/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":"Ursula K. Le Guin, John Cage, et al.: 'To Tell Your Life and Your Self'","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":[247,1393,4701,250,5,4878,251,4159],"tags":[3311,3945,4387,4419,4691,4820,5306,5336,5340,5341,5342],"class_list":{"0":"post-24264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-my-photography","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-fiction","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-john-cage","15":"tag-kim-addonizio","16":"tag-peter-everwine","17":"tag-ursula-k-le-guin","18":"tag-mary-jo-bang","19":"tag-grace-butcher","20":"tag-pandemic-life","21":"tag-nan-shepherd","22":"tag-life-stories","23":"tag-vernacular-photography","24":"tag-finding-your-self","25":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6jm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24264","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=24264"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24288,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24264\/revisions\/24288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}