Watching Sister Wendy

Sister Wendy was on TV again, in a documentary on the Arts channel. The interviewer described her as ‘all glasses and teeth’ – (she has teeth like a rabbit). Her physical appearance did not prevent her from becoming a household name all over the world, as the presenter of programmes on the history of art. What she looks like is as nothing to the power of her presentation.

The focus of this documentary was on her life rather than on art works only. She's no ordinary person. For one thing, she’s very clever: a First from Oxford - one of the best results ever, in English Lit, studying under Tolkien. Her religious Order forbade her to mingle or talk to the other students and she sat and studied every night. Socialising was never her forte.

She taught English and Latin at a school for 20 years, and has been the Mother Superior of a convent. Now that she is over 80 years old, she lives in complete seclusion as a hermit and a ‘Consecrated Virigin’ (whatever that means), in a Carmelite convent in England, separated from the other nuns,  at first in a caravan ‘bought for 60 pounds’,  and parked in a thicket in a remote part of the grounds, and later, when the caravan ‘fell to pieces’,  in a little prefab, about which she says ‘A bath! And an inside toilet!’  (Things must have been pretty rough in the caravan - she also mentions a skylight which leaked). She attends mass daily, still keeping herself apart: she sits in the belfry.

She wanted to be a nun since the age of four, when she had a powerful  experience of God’s presence. It just happened the once, but it was ‘enough to last a life-time”, she says. About her virginity, she says directly to the camera that she lacks any sexual urge, “It was always a mystery to me.”  She regrets that giving up sex was so easy: she would have liked the opportunity to sacrifice more for God.

At times she said things which resonated so directly with me that I experienced a pang in my chest (my heart?) and tears came to my eyes. I was moved, I can’t say why. I am hoping I‘ll understand better what that was about by writing about it. 

The first was when she said about the paintings she chose, that here we have  "...a great genius illustrating something that Christ experienced or suffered, and trying to make Christ's experience visible" - she sees the paintings as a gateway to spiritual experience. 

Piero Della Francesca painted Christ's baptism by St John - Christ is very pale-skinned and blond, and holds his hands prayerfully , but there is a vertical gap between the hands, which are not placed quite symmetrically. And over his head, over St. John's bowl of water and the hand of St John pouring it, there floats a white dove, its wings spread out horizontally, like the purest blessing.  I wondered at the space between the hands, what it meant. It is at the centre of the painting, where Christ's heart might be. And then I realised that the space between the hands, the pouring water and the wings above them form the beginning of a cross which is completed by the dove's tail at the very top. The dove appears quite still, though there is a lot happening elsewhere in the painting, with angels on one side and various religious people in the background. It may be that none of them can see the dove. None of them are looking at it. Jesus himself is looking straight ahead, out of the canvas and is unaware of it. 

In the film, when this painting was introduced, the dove was initially kept out of the frame. The picture looked complete as it was, Christ's baptism. And after Sister Wendy had commented for a while about other aspects of the work, they showed the dove on her own, filling the screen. We hadn't been aware that she was there beforehand. It gave her added emphasis. I shall not forget the experience.

Not work

It is midday and I got up at 6:30 this morning. I have done yesterday's washing-up, watched the news (no newspaper on Sundays in this house) showered and cleaned the bathroom. Drank several cups of coffee. Talked to my husband who was also up early for once.

(Displacement, displacement.)

I know that writing this is an avoidance of the real work. I shall keep it short: I borrowed a book of poems from Wellington's Central Library, the only book which contained something by Cesar Vallejo (see my previous post with his poem).

The title of the book is Staying alive: Real poems for an unreal time (Bloodaxe Books, 2002) edited by Neil Astley. I discover that Neil Astley is the editor for me: I like the poems he has chosen very much. My heart quickens as I read them, all of them. He has gathered the poems up by topic; each section has its own title, a good title, a title about what matters. Each section is introduced by a short editorial which is in small print, as if he was apologising for taking a liberty.

That text takes my hand and walks me through the poems. I am usually too impatient to read much poetry. With Neil Astley's help, I can do it. I am still busy with it, one cannot read a book like this like a novel, though I almost finding myself doing so. Many hours have gone by and still I am busy with it.

(Displacement, displacement.)

Lucky that the Vallejo poem is a different one.

Two NZ poets have been included: Kapka Kassabova,  (four poems) and Fleur Adcock (five). There are also many Eastern European poets. Kapka K was born in Bulgaria.

From the Body and Soul section, here are the first two verses of Kapka Kassabova's The door: anticipation of wisdom:

One day you will see clearly:
you've been knocking on a door without a house.
You've been waiting, shivering, yelling
words of badly concealed and excessive hope.
Where you saw a house, there'll just be another side.

One day you will see clearly:
there is no one on the other side,
except - as ever - the jubilant ocean
which won't shatter
ceramically like a dream
when you and I shatter.

There are four more verses. Three of them start with the words 'But not yet.'

Now I really must go. It is after 3:00 pm.  I have had a short snooze somewhere in the middle of all this time, the better to leap forward now.

Displacement

Yesterday I returned to writing my book. At long last. The chapter about the villain, to be precise. It is turning out to be so hard that I can only see myself writing a single chapter from inside his head. I am not even sure that I can do that. I am trying, No - not good enough - I shall do it.
I have printed out Renee's recommendations for my book, no I should shall cross that out, for my book, Renee's recommendations for me, in an assertive font called Elephant, (black and bold) and stuck them by the screen of my computer where they will attract my attention as soon as it wanders.
I must get the book finished this year. There is nothing to stop me, except myself.
Yesterday a friend came for lunch - no, the truth is that I myself invited her for lunch. I did that. I was writing well, I was onto something to break the back of this awful chapter which has held me up for so long. I had returned to it at long last and  I invented a way out of doing the work: one o’clock was near. I went to the kitchen and opened the fridge for some reason ( what reason?) and it seemed filthy, so I cleaned the worst of it, indignant at the distraction. I then also cleaned the toilet, scrubbed the bowl, swept the floor. I worked fast and furious, desperately. It seemed hugely important (I know now it was a displacement activity, but it felt completely urgent and necessary at the time) and instead of being angry with myself, I was furious with poor Diana, who had no idea what this was about and sat at the table and considered me with her peaceful eyes. She knew exactly what I was feeling, we are old friends, good friends, and she had no idea why I was the way I was, which was something like a not very well restrained cyclone. An inner cyclone and trying to pretend that nothing was happening. I was furious for the time I had spent cleaning. A huge anger which radiated out and contaminated everything no matter how pleasantly I spoke, how often I smiled. Everything offended me. I offended everything. I won't say that I offended Diana, because she does not offend easily. We are usually very fond of each other, but yesterday, when I had fled into my room because I couldn't stay a minute longer eating-and-chatting-when-I-should-be-writing, when I left her with P, and when he had left the room too, she quietly slipped out and tried to run away home. I caught her at the front door and forced her to come back - she is very polite - and the three of us followed the original plan, which was a good one, going for a substantial walk at 3:00 pm to the top of the hill which is near our house, through the bush and up to the top where the wind was blowing, hard. By the time we got back home it was late afternoon and we had been out for two hours. Diana left immediately, poor thing.

That evening, I went out again, with another friend I am fond of, for another walk, a short one. I was not angry at all by then (why not?). I had not seen her for a long time - which was unusual. Short walks with her used to be part of my routine, part of the way I kept sane, balanced (I hope).
I did no more writing yesterday. P and I were tired.

This urge to write is to be respected and worked on. Renee says that I don't write enough.I'll go for a thousand words a day, 6000 a week. No writing on Saturdays.

I'll finish this chapter before I leave for the Zen retreat, which is in ten days time. Is that reasonable?
I shall shut myself in my room, which is a good place, and write. If I allow any more time, the work will smear itself over too long a period, which is what has happened this last year.
I return on the 20th and then I need to work without abating, without seeing anyone, like a monk on a retreat.
Is that too extreme? I'm afraid I won't last. How to manage the keeping in touch ? Maybe not do it,  though I end up weirded out if I haven't spoken to anyone for a while.We might meet friends in a cheap restaurant rather than feed them here. Go to a movie once in two weeks. Keep up the short walks. I shall finish the writing about my grandfather by the end of February, even though we are going away.

What I have now is not good enough. It is a collection of short stories, rather than a single story I can tell all in one go in a flow.Telling that story is what is to be done, by me.

Writing this is a displacement activity. Bah!
Get on with it, girl!

Waking up with sorrow

Kindness

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in the white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend

To be useful

from The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition, by César Vallejo.

For several days, I have felt an exuberant, political need
to love, to kiss affection on its two cheeks,
and I have felt from afar a demonstrative
desire, another desire to love, willingly or by force,
whoever hates me, whoever rips up his paper, a little boy,
the woman who cries for the man who was crying,
the king of wine, the slave of water,
whoever hid in his wrath,
whoever sweats, whoever passes, whoever shakes his person in my soul.
And I want, therefore, to adjust
the braid of whoever talks to me; the hair of the soldier;
the light of the great one; the greatness of the little one.
I want to iron directly
a handkerchief for whoever is unable to cry
and, when I am sad or happiness hurts me,
to mend the children and the geniuses.
I want to help the good one become a little bit bad
and I badly need to be seated
on the right-hand of the left-handed, and to respond to the mute,
trying to be useful to him as
I can, and also I want very much
to wash the lame man’s foot,
and to help the nearby one-eyed man sleep.

Remembering and moving forward

Finished Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat in a day more or less, fascinated by the detail - this corresponds to Renee's telling me to 'write more, more' more' and me understanding a little better what she means, so took something I'd written in the past and inflated it with words, ideas, more detail, and to my surprise found the process satisfying.

He writes the novel going forward in two different periods in parallel, someone in the present who is visiting San Domingo after a long absence, and who remembers the past for us, and in the past moving forward towards the murder of Trujillo and  its consequences.

I am particularly inspired by the description of Trujillo, the way his thinking is portrayed and the mystery which links the pieces. The book is strong on atmosphere, the heat, despair and fear almost palpable.

John Pule's poetry

Went to a John Pule exhibition Sadness Spirit at Pataka - 18 poems on big sheets of thick creamy paper, pinned directly on the wall, no frame, blue handwriting on white paper, the blue ocean-deep, deep deep.  The poems are all reproduced in the catalogue, albeit in the wrong colour, unbelievable. The catalogue is given away free - and that is generous.

John Pule himself read his poems, "No second-hand words", he said.He also said that he wanted people to think of them as proverbs, something they might say to themselves in the morning.
Here is an easy one to do that with, which stayed with me since I saw it:




You can see that the colour is not a beautiful blue. Go and see the exhibition for yourself, preferably on a day when there are only a few people there.
Also read in the catalogue the list of awards he has received, the list of exhibitions, the honors. Sometimes the powers that be do get it right. If he is affected by his success - which he must be, though in which way? - it does not show.
Was disappointed in Pataka: they did not provide him with anything to put his papers on, nor make any effort to provide some quietness - we listened to the poetry against a loud hubbub from people who were attending a launch of another show nearby. Pule himself seemed untroubled.