Winter Letter 2019/2020

Darkness and snow descend;
The Clock on the Mantelpiece
Has nothing to recommend

-- W. H. Auden, Advent

I sit in the front room clutching a mug of Earl Grey and basking in the radiance of the Christmas tree. Its white lights and silver, gold, and multi-colored ornaments push back the advancing dusk. As the light fades, the candles in the window begin to glow, and both they and the white lights on the tree are reflected in the front and back windows. In the front yard, the blue lights on the evergreens snap on, and looking out, I see an overlay of white on blue. And now the solar lights on the pine at the back window fade in. The reflections multiply: outdoor lights reflecting back on themselves and onto each other and playing over the reflections of the indoor tree and the candles. I am pleased and my imagination runs away. I am the warder of the dark and the watcher over the last beacon at the edge of night!

The first hints of Winter came early this year with a snowstorm and heavy gray days over Thanksgiving. I nestled down into layers of cotton and fleece and wrote. While I’m working on a project, I struggle for inspiration, and gray, snow-choked days make it harder. I have successfully wooed it a time or two, but have more often suffered total failure. (Don’t try Spider Solitaire. Does. Not. Work.) Despite all my experience chasing inspiration over the years, I don’t know exactly what it is. Writers write about it. Musicians play and sing to it. Artists draw and paint and sculpt until they find it. Actors become someone else in search of it. When it comes – and there is no guarantee it arrives at all – it is not to be corralled. It does not follow a structure or schedule. It is or is not. Some folks seem to have it at their finger tips whenever they need it. Some of us don’t. In my experience, when inspiration comes it feels like being struck by lighting. And like lightening, it reveals something. Maybe a memory I’d forgotten or some understanding that I didn’t know I had. Inspiration can feel like a sudden collision of ideas that were unrelated but now have a relationship. A feeling that I am part of the world washes over me. And everything is right.

Beginning at the winter solstice, I try to capture the essence of Christmas to find inspiration. "Christmas" for me starts with a feeling of security and love that I had as a child fostered by the love and generosity of my parents. It then morphs into a tradition completely enacted and controlled by me. Some aspects are the same: Caroling, lights, baking, eating meat-heavy meals and sweets, erecting a tree with presents underneath. I stare into the red, green, blue, and gold lights on the mantelpiece and let my eyes go out of focus so the colors blur into a magical tapestry, just as I would as a child. (I had perfected the eye blur at Saint Mary's primary school during Friday morning mass. I would stare at the altar and let my eye muscles relax. The world became a wash of color and a hint of shape.) But forty-eight years later, my adult sensibilities come to bear on the process. I make wreaths from discarded evergreen branches, pine cones, and used red ribbons. I invite friends and family to make merry. I love the sugar-and-chocolate aroma of cookies baking and the earthy citrus spice taste of mulled-wine-soaked orange slices. I want to hear the tinkling of bells, the brass and boom and trill of instruments, and voices raised in song. It is a grand composition.

As an adult I love the reaction others sometimes have to my winter composition. For example, new neighbor CJ pointed us out to his children as we walked by and said “those are the folks with the blue lights.” Lonny, our neighbor for twenty years now, stopped by the house while walking his dog and, as she nosed into the bushes I had just decorated, said in his Texas drawl, “Yep. That’s the house with the blue lights, Peaches.” Susan, next door, commented as she walked by with her dog that I was "too ambitious." I told her I could stop anytime I wanted to. That's when it hit me: I was making myself happy. The whole point of this process was to find delight in my creativity and to connect with others. Perhaps that's inspiration in a nutshell: a feeling of connection, both to ourselves and to others. The completion of a circuit – in the brain, in the soul, in the body. Then we light up from inside. And then that brilliance spills into the outside world.

The final aspect of my winter composition is this: reaching out to all of you. Hope you find the inspiration to do wonderful and creative things for yourself and for others this year.

I Was Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writer's Center

I am delighted and a little bit startled by my time as Writer in Residence at the Gloucester Writers Center. It was a period of deep writing for me as well as an introduction to the city of Gloucester, MA: its landscape and its inhabitants. I have met many of the visitors to the center—from the actual “center” to the “fringe.” It was an honor to meet Henry Ferrini my first day there, and on subsequent visits we had charming and unguarded conversations. All the while, I was aware that I was a stranger to the town and the recipient of a free place to stay in a character of a town at the edge of the sea. And all due to the generosity of Henry, Amanda Cook, Dan Duffy, and the other members of the Gloucester Writers Center board and community. As the days went by, the cast of characters increased and grew more colorful but remained generous and welcoming. Thanks to them all, but especial thanks to Amanda for setting up the reading and being my champion although we had just met.

I wrote several poems while ensconced in Vincent Ferrini’s old cottage. Look for some of them to be posted here on this blog.

Calling Inspiration

A nice red Jump dress (Titanic inspiration) back view Photo by ~ggvic~ [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

I saw you down the street
I caught a glimpse of your red hair
The glint in your eye
Then you were swallowed up in the crowd
and you were gone

Something about the texture of
layered limestone on a bed of red sand
in Ojo Caliente
sends a jolt through me
but the moment passes
like an electric field
through me
but neglects to burn the equivalent
language into my brain

I caught the edge of your red silk dress
just then
and felt the soft weave
I hung on as you danced over the water
and soared over mountain peaks
but at 10,000 feet
I lost my grip
and now I am
10,000 feet down
Where was it to? The rest of that flight?
Can I take the next plane
and catch you up
Apparently all flights are full
and I must sag back down to the ground
in this nameless spot on which I have
landed.

Ellen A.Wilkin

Rembrandt's Prints at the DAM

I pace the length of a white wall, and a tiny portrait catches my eye:
A first impression
A youthful face emerges from the swirls
and hatch marks
It stares out from aged paper and under glass
Renaissance hat perched on the head
(he wants you to think he is a man of letters)
eyes wide, lips forming a silent ooohhh!
like inspiration had just pierced him through.

Rembrandt used a mirror to draw his face
over and over
A series of lines, swirls and shadings
To capture an expression
He must have asked himself each time,
What curves exemplify character
and not caricature?
He sketched the same figure of a portly man with a cane
hundreds of times
before he ever lifted a needle to etch it
into wax or to scratch it onto a naked copper plate
And then he made an impression

He produced hundreds of prints from his press—for his own amusement—
fine-lines flowing as hair on a maid
dense hatches for shadows along a beggar's nose,
lines upon lines upon lines representing the darkness
out of which
the figures of Joseph and Mary emerge riding a donkey—
But friends and even members of the nobility loved his pressings
How much would he charge?
He learned that first pressings fetched more guilder
so once made he might as well remake the plate
and he went deeper
He layered on more wax
refilling the ridges
and re-etching a slightly different scene—
a smaller effort than building a new plate—
He created a new state
from which he made a new "first" impression
which sold well
He could do it in his sleep
and so his hobby helped finance his painting

As Rembrandt impressed paper, so he tried to impress people:
He spent all of his rich wife's money on
expensive rugs and drapes and wine and the most exquisite food stuffs
to keep that Renaissance feel
He held parties and rabble-roused—he was much admired!
But then his investments turned sour
And when Louis XIV offered to buy them
for pennies on the guilder,
He sold them all—
His exquisite light-bathed paintings
And even his most precious prints,
The ones he had kept back for himself
Louis stamped them with his seal—
the initials B. R. under a heavy crown—
And hung the works in a vast empty hall—
The "Biblioteca Royale"—
While Rembrandt died a pauper
His wife, then mistress and son already gone.

Yet first impressions prevail:
the image of "Renaissance" Rembrandt
are printed on post cards
and promotional posters for the Denver Museum of Art,
They are reproduced in high quality gloss for coffee table books—
And they somehow still capture the
Startlement—
the instant of knowing,
the moment of change—
when he knew what he could do
and would do
and would become
It's etched on his face!
I see it clear as day on my own post card—
purchased at the museum gift shop—
and it has not changed for almost four hundred years

That instant of knowing...something...
At certain working moments I feel it, too
like looking in a mirror
and seeing that wide-eyed astonishment
Hearing a half-whispered oohh!
Feeling that still sharp scratch of inspiration passing through
to me
and to the next person
and to the next
as we reshape our words
re-angle our brush strokes
or play with the reach of our pencil lines
Before it disappears
(then seeking it, always seeking it!)
And in the background
Rembrandt still works his press
making his "first" impressions
through the painter on the mall
the graphic artist in her garret
the poet sitting staring out her window.

—Ellen A. Wilkin

Secular Rewrite of Basic Principles (from Artist's Way by J. Cameron)

I am working through The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron this winter. This is my third attempt within the last 20 years to finish the course. I have a partner this year who is working through the course at the same time, which I am excited about and hope means I'll finish. But this year I also feel the need to "rewrite" some of the book to match my own personal preferences. I am an atheist and, although Cameron invites us to substitute whatever word or phrase has meaning to us for the word "God" in her book, I had difficult doing this. I found that I needed to do more than just replace a word. Some statements and descriptions of the process of the Artist Way weren't clear to me. Cameron refers often to supernatural forces and processes. I do not believe in the supernatural. This became most clear to me when I began to re-read the Basic Principles (from the introduction) as one of my Week 2 tasks. I found myself wincing at all the references to "forces," etc. But I thought the basic concept behind the principles was a good one and I wanted to make use of the construct. So I decided to rewrite them. As I worked, I realized that I didn't really know what some of the original phrases meant, so it was hard to translate them. But I gave it my best shot, using phrases and words that fit my own world view. I did not succeed completely. Some of the statements still make me squirm after rewriting, but that's OK. I think that is just me continuing to process what I need and believe. So I wouldn't call these rules "atheistic." The closest might be "Secular."

One principle, Number 7, worked well for me just doing what Cameron suggested: Substituting "Good Orderly Direction" for the word "God." I also found that three of the principles needed no rewrite: they were secular as is and fairly clear. These are numbers 1, 6, and 9. Ironically, number 9, although I didn't feel the need to rewrite it, is one of the principles that I trip over each time I read it. Number 9 scares me because I feel that if I'm just creative all the time, I will loose what I have now in my life. Perhaps I'll write more about that later. Meanwhile, maybe some of you who are atheist (or not specifically religious) and are working at discovering your "Creative self" will find these rewritten rules useful.

Basic Principles Rewritten with a Secular Cast

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is creative energy.
2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative flow infusing all of life--including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creative flow within us.
4. We are, ourselves, creations of evolution. And we, in turn, continue that creativity by being creative ourselves.
5. Creativity is human nature's gift. Using our creativity is our gift back to the world.
6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our nature.
7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to Good Orderly Direction.
8. As we open our creative channel to our creative flow, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.
9. It is safe to open ourselves to greater and greater creativity.
10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from our nature. As we consider our dreams, we see ourselves more clearly and move toward our creative flow.

---

Reference: The Artist's Way, Cameron, Julia, Copyright 1992, Penguin Putnam, New York, NY

Space

Walking in the park
my back to the mountains
the branches of a tree tug at my jacket
Telling me I'm snug in
A paddock where I can let out my feelings
one by one
and let them frolic and wail
my ideas flow, familiar and close
In the creek at my feet
Jays signal their disdain for red-tails
And squirrels chit from some branch
over my head
But they don't judge
the process of creation

Here, there is both sun and shade
today the morning is cool
and I pick sun
The water runs along one edge
And opposite,
a barn, a gazebo, a playground, a roller hockey rink
All quiet
I look down at my feet and find myself
not losing my way
When I look up
a  dog walker appears in the distance
Children on swings
stick to their arc in the air
Moms are too busy with their orbit
All seem to collude in my ramble

If I turn west toward the Rockies—
There lies majesty and breadth
this is the open space
flat like a green and brown sea leading up to ravaged cliffs
with only buoys of thistle to break the line
until the hard stop of lime- and sand-stone
This is recreation
Exposed to the elements:
walkers, joggers, cyclists, skateboarders,
Frisbee golfers, dog walkers, child walkers,
cricket players
Here we work out
this is breathing out out out
pushing your heart until it bursts
not listening to its quiet murmurings.
The distant mountains
a goal
a mark of an end point
yet of a beginning
Calling out,
“Just wait until you get to our stone foot
then you will know true noble human endeavor
real outdoor rigor!”
Everyone wondering, Who is more worthy?

And the lake is a horizontal mirror
reflecting open sky
it is endless and—
too late—
I've put myself out there
I am exposed
The high school across from the water
bursts over a rousing game of baseball
prairie dogs dart across the pavement
from one hole to another—
The ground beneath my feet
is all on edge—
A busy street ahead makes way for brazen cars and trucks
Apartments open to let out folks to work, to
play
Kids meander to school,
their parents in tow.
Yes I am exposed,
And I'll face the west again
You can look for me
Out in the open
For here the wind blows
And chaps the skin
and the irritation of rough use
leads to toughness
and acting
out.

But these days please don't look for me
near the running of a creek,
it's water capturing the air in small musical leaps,
nor in the embrace of willows
that blur the edges
and bid me rest easy
in my mind.
For here lies
the selfish center of inspiration.

Eight-Week Europe Solo Travel 2011: Reflections on Time Travel, Traveler Angst, and What One's Protagonist Might Do

Friday, June 10, 2011, Bayeux, France

Working from the journal I kept while traveling alone In Europe has reminded me how the journey shaped my writing and my views of my novel protagonist. I went to Europe to gather insight into what it might be like for my protagonist, Aihne Fontaine, to go to a foreign country and to travel 800 years into the past. Although I couldn't literally travel back in time, I would be walking through some very old parts of Europe, which I hoped would transform me back, even just in my head. And I was right: I found I shared not only Aihne's perspective as a traveler in a foreign land, but I felt I knew what it might be like to be a time traveler like her--sometimes while sitting in front of a 5000-year-old dolmen or standing inside a centuries-old church. Aihne is a Harvard student, time traveler, and lover of everything 12th-century France, Aihne is independent, intelligent and a serious academic. Like Aihne, I viewed my travel experience as academic at root (although, as you may know from previous blog entries, I strayed off my research path to see the wonders around me).

What surprised me during my own travel experience was the wide gap between the person I identified as me in the mirror and the person the culture I was visiting reflected back at me as I meandered into their train stations, hotels, or cafes. I knew at once Aihne must feel the same after landing in the indifferent city of Poitiers, France in 1136. But I must take my communication muddles and multiply them by ten to get close to how hard it must be to go back in time almost a millennium. Aihne and I both sought to be understood and to understand. I took the opportunity when I could to connect with Aihne and her experience, even in the middle of my own social discomfort. I tried to catch her perspective by walking cobbled streets or sitting on a bench in a cathedral. Then back in my tiny hotel room, I would write furiously in my notebook to reach further into her head and get it all down. At times the connection wasn't strong. Sometimes it was interrupted by my own angst, but eventually I got through.

Journal Excerpt, Friday morning, June 10, 2011, Breakfast Room, Hotel Churchill, Bayeux, France:
Not awake. Australian show off! He could answer our matron de in French and she was pleased. Oh, wait. He is not the Australian. He is the Brit from the first night who encouraged me to find the WiFi connection, and I eventually did. This coffee is old. Perhaps la matron de can bring me a fresh pot.... Yes. I asked. I hate to be a problem, but the coffee was so good yesterday. Ellen, this is not a 4-star restaurant, you know. But the coffee was bad and I know they make good coffee... Dave wouldn't have done it, but Dave isn't here! :) Okay. Got coffee. Thanked the woman for it. Now I have some time to write, so...

Aihne walking through the medieval hall—

The interior of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux. More beautiful than the exterior to my cursory view from my last night there.

I got a chill. I wanted to run out of the Bayeux cathedral last night. I had seen so many stone walls. I felt I didn't belong here. Unlike the Mont Saint-Michel, which invites the tourist trade, this cathedral is still very private. No entry fee, but votive candles everywhere. I did not feel comfortable making an offering there—mine would not be a religious one, but spiritual, as in celebrating the seeking and finding. Outside, the church is so old and grim. The city is preserving it as an historical site. I wondered why.  Then I walked inside. The windows were gorgeous. Such starkness and beauty all in one place. Perpetual sorrows—

The grim, weathered outside of Bayeux Cathedral.

Churches wouldn't be Aihne's primary research, but she is quite interested in abbeys, particularly the Abbey at Fontevraud. So the images: the gloom, the high transepts and the hollow echoes that become glorious chant from the choir at other times. It all goes to the same thing: the cloistered life, religious or not. Living away from the large community in a smaller one where contemplation is not only encouraged but one of the few activities open to a woman of high birth who had been retired by society. But I get ahead of myself. That is the next chapter of my journey. At Saumur, I will see the Abbey de Fontevraud.

Paintings on a wall of the gallery at the Bayeux Cathedral.

Time traveling. I can understand how disjoint it must be. You don't speak the language exactly, at least in Aihne's case. She has studied linguistic remnants of the language and knows how it probably sounded based on modern romance and Germanic languages. She will refine it as she goes. Get by on her wits. I understand not knowing if your message is getting through. Are you going to get what you asked for—what you thought you asked for? Or something entirely different? Of course, unlike Aihne, I'm a tourist. There is a courtesy extended to strangers who come to visit a country. We are (mostly) forgiven our ignorance. Time travelers walk among the people incognito. I am looking at present-day ruins of medieval sites instead of living in them as new structures along with medieval contemporaries like Aihne is. And Aihne is going back to a time and place in which strangers posed much more likely threats than in western civilization today.

By Anonymous - "Eve spinning", folio 8r, detail from the Hunterian Psalter, Glasgow University Library MS Hunter 229 (U.3.2)  Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.

Aihne must be thinking, "Will people regard me as other and run me out of town? Will they trust me or suspect me? So what if they suspect me? Will they act on the suspicion?" That would be problematic. You'd have to smooth things over, faking it. That would be the only way to do it. Constantly smiling when you are talking. Pretending to be helpless or very much like it. (In some ways Aihne and I are both helpless.) Play up the helplessness in some cases. In others, be tougher, stronger, even magical. With men, I suppose, always demur, but calculate carefully so that you do not play it too far. With women, show yourself to be more inept than they, but a hard worker and eager to learn. Puts them on a higher footing than you and they will trust more. Act in trust—prove your trustfulness by doing what you said or indicated you would.

So ends the journal entry from that Friday morning before I set off on my 5 1/2-hour journey from Bayeux to Saumur and encountered adventures that pushed me further into the unknown realms of space and time travel.