"Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors." (Wendell Berry).
To write as Wendell Berry does must take all his dedication and most of his time because I have realized, after 60 years, that creativity - writing, music, painting, any form of creative work, involves a kind of retreat from life as it goes on around us.
There's a constant choice to be made for anyone interested, as I am, in life and the marvellous activities one can fill it with. I haven't figured out how to make these choices yet. I am still learning.
Busy-work is so easy to do and leaves you with a sense of being important, somehow - you've probably had many instances of the "sorry, gotta go, I've got so-o-o much to do today" syndrome. Cleanliness is next to godliness, we are told and what a bear-pit of a trap that idea is! Keeping busy by cleaning and tending our domicile is looked upon with approval by the society we live in and, in truth, I like to live in a clean (ish), well-ordered home, even if the cost in achieving it is great.
One thinks of Buddhist and Catholic monks and nuns obediently doing their chores and being in the present moment. I get close to this present moment thing when hanging wet laundry on the washing line that stretches from the back northeast corner of my house, across the deck and to a tree at the edge of the woods. It is the kind of line you can pull along as you hang the clothes. With my head tilted up to clip the clothes pegs over the washed clothes, I can see up through strong, heavy branches of the sugar maple growing straight and very sturdy next to the house. If I'm lucky, a pair of chatting geese will honk their way up the nearby ravine, the top of which is near where I'm standing. Or, a large sharp-shinned hawk will glide silently from a tree, swooping over the ravine to see what breakfast might be.
This is the same territory where the barred owl caused an uproar among the smaller songbirds two evenings ago at dusk. The ensuing fracas brought us running out to see what was happening and to see the owl, on one of those sturdy maple branches, swivelling her head to spot incoming small birds dive-bombing her, intent on driving her awy. For a few precious seconds she rested her perfectly round, perfectly black, bottomless eyes on us in a moment of wild connection. Species to species. Then she flew off for a less congested neighborhood with fewer nesting songbirds intent on protecting their nests from the predator.
But, I digress from choices that must be made on a daily basis, and that, is just my point. I can hang my laundry and do my garden and be surrounded by infinitely fascinating nature that is nothing short of thrilling. But when other apparently necessary tasks intervene in the name of keeping a modern life, they are sometimes a burden and a distraction from achieving anything that is meaningful.
Creating something, a garden, a poem, a meal, or a handicraft, in any way that resembles art, needs my full concentration and is my life, really. Set aside to be done in snatches of time between dealing with clients, paying bills, exercising, going to work, driving here and there, keeping up with people who mostly don't share my desire to not have to know what the daily scandal is on the network news, and what Chinese manufactured things are on sale at Target or Walmart - all these take me away from peace and serenity and the energy to create something different.
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