In Hand
Friday, May 9, 2008
I'm hoping that Jay Kirk, whose emails I rely on for the shock of light and truth, doesn't mind me quoting just ever so slightly from one of his emails yesterday, and if he does, Jay, I'm sorry. I had mentioned my own mental testiness of late—I believe I referred to my writerly state of mind as something resembling a "thick stew of self-castigation." I believe I was doubting myself. And because Jay is a phenomenal talent on the page, writing one of the best nonfiction books this world is ever going to get to read, when he's finished with it, and soon he'll finish with it, and because his teacherly talents are gigantic, too, he understood. "That's the awful-funny thing about writing isn't it?" he wrote. "How we're motivated by some version of self-hatred, or if that's too strong, at least the unrelenting desire to perfect and correct." But then he said, because he's a rescuer, too, "Ultimately, if you're totally monomaniacal, you can get it right."
Like catching a bird in one's hands, I thought—the wing weight, the heart throb.
2 comments:
Beth,
I've been reading this interesting but quirky book on creativity and thought of you when I read this:
"A dancer I know described a profound shift in her feelings about herself when she was in an immersive state during dance compared to when she was not. When she was immersed in dance, she experienced herself as graceful and beautiful. She confidently moved across the floor, feeling enhanced by her movements. However, at other times, when she was not immersed and was, instead, 'on the outside of the dance,' she experienced herself as inadequate and self-conscious. She compared herself to other dancers, concluding that her body type was 'not right.' She focused on her technical flaws and found that she would trip herself up by thinking too much about what she was doing. As she alternated between these immersive and non-immersive states, her self-perception and experience changed completely . . . .
. . . The experience of immersion can feel like a sense of home . . . "
The book's Standing at Water's Edge by Anne Paris. I'm enjoying her discussion of how to learn to move smoothly between states and hope the self-castigation is soon, soon, replaced by the dance!
Jane
Jane,
You — Anne Paris — have just so thoroughly described my relationship with dance.
I believe I am young. I believe I have grace. I believe in myself, when I dance.
Thank you for this magnificent quote.
Love
b
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