Category Archives: creativity

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On packing

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If there is one activity that for me is fraught with ambiguity and melancholy it is packing for long trips. Not that I’m going on a long trip or anything, but many people I know are packing up and moving out because school is out, they are graduating, taking new jobs, and moving on. They are leaving and a big part of leaving is packing. I am happy that they are getting on with their lives, but I am sad that they are leaving once and for all, and when people leave, they never come back. When I pack I invariably forget half a dozen things which are vital to my survival, but I do manage to take forty pounds of stuff that I will never need when I get to my destination. In the meantime, I’ve forgotten my toothbrush, an extra pair of underwear, and my glasses. I would forget shoes but I’ve got to put them on to get out of the door. Living in Waco, I have forgotten to bring a coat or jacket with me and regretted it. Packing is such an imprecise science which prone to fail just when you think you have it right. You forget the little book with all your passwords, the cord to your phone charger, your phone, your keys, your snacks. If there is an art to packing it has to do with traveling light, always including a towel, never expecting that you will remember everything. In other words, when you get to your destination, just imagine that you will have to go buy a few things because that’s just the way packing is. Packing is both the sign for a new destination and leaving behind of a current place, all of which is fraught with multiple complications which are all undergirded by strange feelings of loss. Sure, you can always, “phone home,” but it’s not the same as being there. So even getting out the suitcases makes me just slightly morose and cranky, irked, maybe.

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On a night with no inspiration

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My muse is sitting out on the back porch, drinking something and wiggling her bare toes in the cool night air. She was reading Petrarch this evening. Petrarch always makes her quiet and pensive–she hates that old Italian, and she kept murmuring, “Trovommi amor del tutto disarmato.” She smokes another cigarette, watches the sun set, gets all maudalin and teary. I noticed she was also reading an old novel–can’t figure out what that’s all about. She likes April in Texas because the weather is always all over the place, at once too hot, too cold, too dark. I tell her I’m going to write about love, but she silently dismisses me and pulls out an old notebook where she starts to scribble. “He was right. Petrarch was right. How could he live with himself?” This time I walk away. A big, huge raindrop lands on her foot, and lightning is grumbling all around. She quotes quietly, “Que ni el amor destruya la primavera intacta.” I can smell the smoke from her half-burned cigarette. A filthy habit, but she doesn’t smoke really; she lights them and lets them burn. She doesn’t as much smoke as she does burn cigarettes. “You know, you need to start a new project,” she calmly says as the dark settles across the horizon. It was always nights like this when I knew that she loved me, but then again, no. I ask, “What would Lorca have said?” Without blinking, and as cold as ice she answered, “Sucia de besos y arena, / yo me la llevé del río.” She just stared out into the night, the wind was combed by the fig tree’s empty branches, and the stars traced infinite paths in the heavens. Ni nardos ni caracolas tienen el cutis tan fino ni los cristales con luna relumbran con ese brillo.–Lorca

On plastic building blocks (Legos)

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I secretly desire seeing the new Lego movie. As a kid, of course, I had a modest set of Legos, blocks of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I liked the wheels because then I could build things that rolled. Not cars, really, but rolling multi-layered and multi-colored sculptures that I could consciously morph into new and bigger and more bizarre shapes. Plastic building blocks offer a challenge for both the imagination and the possible creativity that it might engender. The biggest challenge was often finding a way to keep my latest creation from coming apart and going to pieces. Symmetry was frequently an issue. Finding enough bricks or blocks of a certain color or shape is always an issue. I came to Legos early, before the introduction of the little people, so I either had to build my own people or go without a driver or pilot or Darth Vader or mechanic or fireman. My favorite piece was a giant gray slab upon which I could build many different things, but I also like the thin, white planks that were great for building wings or platforms. The tiniest of the pieces, a “one”, whether round or square, are great for little kids who want to stick something dangerous up their noses (please don’t try this–we have stunt doubles who know what they are doing), but the actual utility of these pieces is doubtful. The best part of Legos is the endless variety of things that you might build, bounded only by your imagination, time, space, and your blocks.

On plastic building blocks (Legos)

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I secretly desire seeing the new Lego movie. As a kid, of course, I had a modest set of Legos, blocks of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I liked the wheels because then I could build things that rolled. Not cars, really, but rolling multi-layered and multi-colored sculptures that I could consciously morph into new and bigger and more bizarre shapes. Plastic building blocks offer a challenge for both the imagination and the possible creativity that it might engender. The biggest challenge was often finding a way to keep my latest creation from coming apart and going to pieces. Symmetry was frequently an issue. Finding enough bricks or blocks of a certain color or shape is always an issue. I came to Legos early, before the introduction of the little people, so I either had to build my own people or go without a driver or pilot or Darth Vader or mechanic or fireman. My favorite piece was a giant gray slab upon which I could build many different things, but I also like the thin, white planks that were great for building wings or platforms. The tiniest of the pieces, a “one”, whether round or square, are great for little kids who want to stick something dangerous up their noses (please don’t try this–we have stunt doubles who know what they are doing), but the actual utility of these pieces is doubtful. The best part of Legos is the endless variety of things that you might build, bounded only by your imagination, time, space, and your blocks.

On false starts

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Ever start a project only to find out you were doing everything wrong and you need to start over from scratch. Some times writing projects are like that–you write a page before you realize that you were on the wrong track, that you were in left-field, that you were lost. There are nights when no matter what you write, you aren’t going to like it, and it turns into a false start that you mercifully throw away the next day. False starts are strange mirages that seem real enough, but then they quickly turn to sand and flow away through your fingers. I can’t even count the times I’ve written four or five sentences, realized it wasn’t working, and thrown it away. The development of a real idea, something concrete that catches the imagination, is often a very fleeting moment, a bit of creative lightening that never strikes twice in the same spot. That lucid moment when you decide to write about love or death, war or peace, is not always or ever obvious. Often, the creative juices flow, but slowly, sometimes painfully, in the middle of the chaos of a regular day, hidden within the mundane noise of everyday routine. That one great idea–a mere fragment of an idea that pops up in a lecture, a reading, a song, a newspaper headline–does not announce itself as a great idea. I use my false starts to weed out the vegetable patch and find that one clear idea that is yearning to be developed into something elegant, more elaborate, more complex. But the false starts fall into the gutter like autumn leaves, brown and gray, having served a purpose, now discarded, turning slowly to dust.

On unpacking my library

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Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.

On unpacking my library

Posted on by

Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.