Then and Now

Then: 17 August 2009

     It has been over a year since I started this volume, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I've all but abandoned you, and the poetry hasn't been all that forthcoming either. My last poem was over a month ago. If it weren't for my reading—which isn't much, admittedly—my brain would surely atrophy. I lead the life of my mother and father and have none of my own. Or should I say rather, that I have no life outside that of my mother and father? I have devoted myself completely to them.

     I try not to think of the future—too frightening—and when I do feel frightened, I try to submit myself to Providence.

     Too many memories haunt me. Part of me wants to cleave to them as some sort of confirmation of I'm not sure what, and part of me thinks it's perhaps better if I try to put my past lives in a drawer, close it firmly, and never consciously think of those lives again. What pleasure does it give me to think of them? None. Only pain and regret.

     All the regrets I have about my two and a half years in the monastery have yet to be sorted and clarified, and finally—hopefully—converted into a more tranquil, philosophical vein. Right now, I'm still torn between resentment of not being completely understood by the sisters, not having been given enough of a chance, and guilt that I just didn't try hard enough to overcome my need to be the authority in all matters musical and linguistic. Sometimes I think that I wasted the gift of my vocation through sheer pride and obstinacy; and in those moments when that thought torments my peace, I long to have a wise and holy confessor to whom I can pour out my soul. Then again, if I hadn't left, I wouldn't be here to relieve my mother of some of the heavy burden of caring for my father, nor would I have the gift of healing the rift, at least in part, that has long existed between my father and me.

     If I hadn't left opera, I would have spiraled rapidly down the shaft of frustration and dissatisfaction that I had already begun to descend. My friends, dear as they were to me, most likely would not have offered enough to sustain me through my increasing restlessness. My success as a coach would have continued to fuel my pride and my intolerance of what I perceived to be mediocrity. In short, I would have become hateful to myself and undeserving as ever to remain in God's grace.

     No, I am better off where I am, living a humble, hidden, and hopefully useful life. My demons continue to taunt and tempt me, but I try my best to stay close to Jesus and Mary. If my writing never gives any pleasure to anyone except a very small handful of people, I will be satisfied, and not seek anything more.

 

Now: 28 October 2012

     It's a perfectly gorgeous day, one that sets your heart rejoicing the second you go out the door and into the refreshing, golden crispness of autumn. The sky is endlessly brilliant and only the smallest breezes disturb the treetops.

     I'm back in a writing slump after a month of relative productivity, but never mind. I've learned a good deal from that month, received much encouragement and affirmation, and rest in the renewed confidence that I still have it in me to write good poetry. My muse may not be consistent or even reliable, but it isn't dead!

     Mom and I live a very quiet life. The monastery has rid me forever, I think, of the old restlessness that made me jump in my car and wonder where I could go to run away from myself. I was only running away from emptiness. Now I stay at home for contentment. Every night when I hug my mother and wish her a good sleep, I feel grateful and blessed. Life is found inside oneself.

     I no longer feel regret for my time in the cloister. I can now accept peacefully my own shortcomings and my failure to fulfill the vocation God gave me. I look on my present life as his generous gift of a second chance and am happy with that. He has given me back music, too, in a measure I can deal with serenely, without stress or anxiety, just the pure joy.

     My musical past, too, I can now look back on without regret. If my temper and intolerance held me back from accomplishing more than I did, I can only smile ruefully and move on. What have I missed, after all? Nothing at all. I've only been given more than enough, more than I ever deserved.

     I have the peaceful, useful life I have always, at my heart's core, wanted.

Golden Light

John Atkinson Grimshaw
"Golden Light"

 

 

Giuramento (Oath)

 

If autumn's graces never came again,

Its lace no longer glimmered in the lane,

Its leaves no longer wept with cooling rain—

     Still, I would love.

 

Should autumn's music sing its last refrain

And summer ever glisten on the plain,

The memory of autumn will remain—

     So, too, my love.

 

© Leticia Austria 2009
First published in Decanto



"Organized" Is in the Eye of the Beholder

     The other evening, my mother came into my room, looked at my shelves, and murmured, "How do you find anything in here?" To which I gave the inevitable reply: "I know exactly where everything is."

     How many times have we heard this short exchange? And which are you: the ask-er, or the answerer? Whichever you are may tell in the proverbial nutshell a great deal about your character. So you might correctly conclude that, being the answerer, I am somewhat less than neat, maybe even downright messy; but does it follow that I am also unorganized? Are all messy people unorganized, or are there degrees of messiness? And if there are, do these degrees somehow correspond to one's mental processes? Or is one's neatness or messiness an unconscious rebellion, if you will, against those processes? For instance, if one has difficulty organizing ideas into some cohesive whole, does one therefore make up for it by keeping shelves in admirable order, each object in its logical, prescribed place? Conversely, if one "lives" much inside one's own head, amusing oneself by making ordered sense out of random thoughts, does his physical environment pay the price by being neglected and, over time, disordered?

     There may be no easy, formulaic answers to any of these questions; I just put them out there in an effort to defend my own messiness.

     It is perfectly true, however, that I know exactly where everything is in my room, even though, to others' eyes, my shelves are a choked and hopeless jungle of books, file folders, journals, and binders. If you were to ask me to show you how my poem "Elegy" developed from initial concept, through all drafts and revisions, to the final product, I would be able to supply promptly all the relevant information; first, the file containing the rejected poem from which I culled the first line, then the notebook in which I drafted the first versions of "Elegy," then the file that contains typed copies with minor revisions, and finally the binder in which I keep the final version. And you would probably be agape that I could produce all that so quickly and efficiently from my so-called "mess."

     Were I more technologically oriented, all of the aforesaid would be in my hard drive and I would just open the pertinent files. Honestly, though—where's the challenge in that? Where's the fun?  Moreover, where would be the satisfaction in proving that I indeed do know where everything is? I submit that being messy has definite advantages—if nothing else, the mind is made sharper by the sheer exercise of keeping track of one's own mess. Organization begins and ends in the mind. Whether or not it manifests itself in one's surroundings is, IMHO, completely irrelevant.

    
    

Whassup?

     As I headed out the door to go to Mass this morning, I suddenly realized that I hadn't been anywhere at all since I went to Mass last Sunday! A whole week at home. It's amazing how tempus indeed fugit , even when one never sets foot outside the door, if one makes use of imagination, thought, and curiosity. To satisfy any and all of these, there are books and music, both reliable and inexhaustible sources, and both of which I possess enough to keep me happily engrossed for the remainder of my earthly life.

     I've been dipping into two brilliant essay collections these past two weeks: In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G. K. Chesterton,  and Christopher Morley's Philadelphia. The first covers a wide and astonishingly diverse variety of topics from pocket knives to the Book of Job; the second, being focused on the city of Philadelphia, is narrower in scope; nevertheless, Morley often takes us on delightful tangents: a mere slice of sunlight on the side of a building inspires him to write an extended and rather lovely version of the "stop and smell the roses" idea. I look forward to receiving Morley's collection of essays on New York, which I ordered a few days ago.

     In an earlier post I wrote that I also ordered a score of Schubert's piano sonatas so that I could study them in depth while I listened. It arrived yesterday, and I look forward to beginning my study this week. Just glancing through the score, I realized I was imagining my hands playing the notes—inevitable, I suppose. Still, I have no real desire to play. For one thing, though I still have a baby grand, it's in an appalling enough state to discourage anything but the most casual "noodling." Serious practice is completely out of the question, and a very good thing it is so, for me.

     On the poetry front, I've had an extremely fertile month—five new ones and one major revision. This is indeed "fertile" compared to the utter barrenness of previous months. I wrote somewhere in my journal that I would be happy to write one good poem per month, and I still mean that. I'd settle for one good one over four or five mediocre ones, which the Lord knows I've written in many a month in the past several years. No, my reject file is plump enough.

     So that, in a few short paragraphs, is "whassup." I do have definite plans to get out of the house this week, but even if I didn't, there is plenty on my shelves to keep my brain from turning into total mush. Thank the great God for the written word of brilliant men and women, and for glorious music.

Ears without Eyes

     A few years ago I gathered all my piano scores that were in solid physical shape and weren't rife with my personal markings and sold them to Half Price Books, in hope that some earnest piano student with limited funds would snatch them up. Snatched they were; in fact, when I returned to Half Price a couple of weeks later, most of my scores were gone. I wasn't surprised, really; piano scores of the better editions can be very expensive when bought new, especially for poor students.

     Besides needing the shelf space for my ever-expanding library of books, I sold my scores because I decided once for all to give up playing the piano, even for personal pleasure—"personal pleasure" for me never could last long, as my temper and hyper-perfectionism always got the better of me. I did, however, keep a few: Mozart sonatas, Chopin nocturnes, a handful of concertos. Some things one cannot part with, for any reason. It would be like losing a limb. (Another reason why I made a very poor nun.)

     Now that I can once again listen to piano music without the emotional pain—for which I am infinitely grateful—I find it peculiar in a sort of amusing way that listening is so difficult for me without actually seeing the music. It occurred to me last night, as I listened to the chiaroscuro  of Schubert's D959, that I would better understand not only the music but also Kempff's interpretation (for that was whose performance I was listening to) if I had the score in front of me, and could see the actual markings. Only in that moment did I realize just how much of a hindrance my musical history was to simple aural learning. I thought of all the music lovers in the world, those with a genuine, refined, informed taste, who can't read a note of music. How do they "learn" the music without seeing it? * That one could indeed learn merely by listening is a notion I never seriously had to consider till now—now that I had no score to consult whenever my ears prompted the question, "Why did Kempff do that ? Why did he make that specific choice, if it was  his choice and not an actual marking in the score?"

     I don't regret for a moment the basic reason behind selling my scores, but now I do regret not being able to consult them, to which end, I have ordered the Complete Schubert Sonatas (unfortunately sans  the "fragments") in the very edition I once owned. I anticipate its arrival as I would the arrival of a dear friend I've not seen in a long time. Its renewed presence in my life will not stir up old, painful memories, but will only enrich and enhance my newly found "personal pleasure" in listening to music.

* I'm not referring to "playing by ear," which is another thing entirely; I'm referring to getting to know a piece of music intimately through study.

    

From My Big Orange Book

"Destructive self-criticism stops you from creating. Divine dissatisfaction inspires you to go on." — Ellen Burstyn, actor

Ms. Burstyn said this in a segment of Inside the Actors Studio. When I heard it, I immediately wrote it down in my Big Orange Book.

Along the same lines, pianist Stephen Hough wrote this recently on Twitter:

"Practising at any age: calm, concentrated, devoted, perfection as much as you can ... but kind to yourself, smiling, relaxed!"

When I read this, I thought back to all the years I cursed like a sailor and yelled at myself in practice sessions, called myself an idiot, threw music scores and even a jar of sun tea across the room, and banged my fists on the piano keys in frustrated rage. No wonder I now suffer from high blood pressure. If I'd known then what I know now ... nah. I'd still call myself an idiot. Too bad. Who knows how much more I would have accomplished, had I been kinder to myself and not given in to "destructive self-criticism"?

With a Little Help from My Friends

     I love my Facebook friends. Many of them are poets, teachers, lovers of poetry, or people who simply love words and their evocative power. Quite a few of them are people I've never met face to face; we've become comrades of the written word through a social network. I'm not afraid to ask their advice or to solicit constructive criticism when working on a poem, and they always come through for me. I've done this a couple of times just in this past month, and the result is that new poems are flowing out of me after an unusually long period of writer's block. My friends help me when I need them, and they help me even when I don't think I need them.

     Contrastingly, I recently "met" a fellow poet through the internet whose opposition to advice and constructive criticism frankly confounds me. It has been my experience that when a poet reaches out to a colleague and sends him some of his work, it is because he wants feedback—but in this particular case, I assumed wrongly. Not only did this poet reject my well-meaning suggestions, but wrote me quite bluntly that they were not appreciated—nor were the suggestions of yet another colleague, who apparently made the same assumption I did about well-meaning, supportive collaboration.

     To say that I was bewildered, even shaken, by this reaction is an understatement. But we all have different ways of working, different ways of growing; and perhaps, contrary to what Donne wrote, being an island has its good points. For me, though, I need the eyes, ears, and objectivity of others to help me grow as a poet and as a person. I am truly grateful for any help that my friends so kindly give me.