Spiritual Attachment Amid Spring Distraction

O, Glorious Morning in May!

Is single vision possible in the spring? Narrow focus? Can anyone achieve or even attempt it? Look here! Oh, look over there! The door opens . . . the sun floods in . . . outdoors beckons. . . .

Bruce worked yesterday at the bookstore, and David was on hand, also, working in his gallery (photos soon, i.e., as soon as he feels everything is ready), making freedom’s clarion call almost irresistible, and the only reason I settled down to paint the new railing by the entrance was that we were expecting a friend’s visit, and the hope of seeing her kept me at my task until it was done.

Helping the paint dry....

Can you read the shadows on the wall?

Picnic ground on the bluffs

Didn’t Sarah deserve a reward then for her patience? I thought so, and we made a little expedition to Peterson Park, where by chance we met a Boston terrier from Chicago. (That was fun for all concerned!)

Lake Michigan

Next stop was to see our friends (and their pigs) at Bare Knuckle Farm. (Hi, Abra!) Then a visit to Northport Nursery for beautiful blue lobelia. I don’t worry about finding geraniums before Memorial Day, but lobelia can be elusive, and an opportunity cannot be allowed to slip past.

(A plethora of parentheses, you see. They indicate a distracted mind, don’t you think?)

Time, work, and nature will make this a garden

Home at last to water my straw bales and to breathe in their sweet scent, anticipating the tomato plants I’ll be getting from the Bare Knuckle folks and remembering the giant collard plant – one plant – that gave and gave and gave two years ago when I had my first straw bale garden. (Must have collards!)

We met friends for dinner at the Bluebird in Leland, and that brought back a flood of memories, as did seeing many other friends there for dinner, companions from earlier Leland days, older now, as are we. After dinner, we took the traditional stroll down to the harbor for sunset. 

The river flows out into the Big Lake

Stephanie said, "Every sunset is beautiful."

Memories, going back in time, anchoring one in place. David will always be a “Leland person,” his memories there going back to 1957, but it’s different for me, because in Leland (coming from Kalamazoo) I was only, first, his girlfriend, later, his wife. When a Northport friend whose Leelanau family goes back four generations told me years ago that I was a “Northport person,” I felt proud. I’m happy in Northport, where my bookstore was born 20 years ago, right on Waukazoo Street. But I’ve never lived in the village.

So my “spiritual home,” as David puts it, is not in any city or town. Not in Northport, Michigan, or Paris, France, not in Chicago or Cincinnati or Kalamazoo or Delton. It’s here on our few acres surrounded by orchards and woods. Back when we still lived in Leland, David had his studio here in the farmhouse, and I had my first garden, and the only water we had for drinking was what we hauled in. A rain barrel and many trips down the hill to the creek and back up with full buckets kept my garden alive. Our old dog loved to lie under the basswood tree in the backyard and watch me work in the garden. Now Sarah loves the same spot.

Pots to fill

Under the basswood tree. The messy but venerable old silver maples, one in front, another in back of the house. Back roads and places without paths. My old farmhouse, my country neighborhood. St. Wenceslaus Parish, Fischer’s Happy Hour Tavern. My front porch and my backyard. My clotheslines. My meadow.

This is the place I love, my home ground, my spiritual home, my anchorage. Here the distractions fall away. Its center holds me.

It is a whole world...

,,,in every season

Monday: A Good Day From Morning ‘Til Night

January morning light

Beautiful dawn! It reminded me of sunrise over the Gulf Coast of Florida, except that here, instead of palm trees and sawgrass, are the homier sights of cherry trees, pines, and mixed hardwoods against the winter sky. How could a day this beautiful before sunrise not turn out splendid? 

Afternoon sun streams through woods

Sarah the Intrepid!

And its early promise was fulfilled. Appointments and errands accomplished before lunch, afternoon summoned me out to meadow and woods and orchards, where Sarah enjoyed exploring, running, sniffing, and investigating, led mostly by her nose, while I followed at a more leisurely pace, my eye taking note of animal tracks and wind patterns on the sparkling surface of drifted snow.

Camera creates illusion of face-to-face meeting

Imagine the snow as sand on the beach....

It was a day of very high winds. A radio announcement warned about a wind advisory for traffic on the Mackinac Bridge. Look at the whitecaps right here on Lake Michigan. And see how bright the willows are in the sun against the blue of water and sky? They look like they’re on fire!

Sun-drenched branches, wind-tossed waters

After climbing Claudia’s hill, treading quietly through Claudia’s woods, following the orchard rows back to Kovarik Road, and then coming back north again between orchard and eastern woods, downhill toward home, I was ready to come indoors to a cup of hot tea, a tiny piece of decadent baklava, and a good book. Joseph loaned me Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain, and who will be surprised that I found myself in those pages? Were you called “shy” when you were a kid? Urged against your inclination to “join the group”? Did your parents even worry that you might be “antisocial”? If this describes you, Cain says,

Now that you’re an adult, you might still feel a pang of guilt when you decline a dinner invitation in favor of a good book. Or maybe you like to eat alone in restaurants and could do without the pitying looks from fellow diners. Or you’re told that you’re “in your head too much,” a phrase that’s often deployed against the quiet and cerebral.

Or maybe—though it would surprise me to find you among my readers if this is the case—you’re the life of the party but find yourself in a relationship with a mystifying, baffling introvert and can’t help wondering what’s wrong with your partner. The answer, in a word, is nothing.

Introverts and extroverts aren’t even anti- and pro-social, as is often believed, Cain says. They’re differently social. Extroverts in general are comfortable and happy with high levels of stimulation, including louder music than introverts find pleasant. One wants a noisy party, the other a quiet table for two. Longitudinal studies show that a “high-reactive” baby, one with an excitable amygdala (located deep in the “old brain” we share with animals as different from us as rodents), a baby more vigilant and frightened and active in the face of novel stimulation, will grow up to be an introverted adult, while the placid baby undisturbed by strange sights and sounds will be the grownup extrovert.

What does this have to do with leadership—or with simply leading a happy, productive, effective life? Should we listen only to charismatic extroverts? Cain opens her book with a fascinating contrast between Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., observing that

...a formidable orator refusing to give up his seat on a segregated bus wouldn’t have had the same effect as a modest woman who’d clearly prefer to keep silent but for the exigencies of the situation. And Parks didn’t have the stuff to thrill a crowd if she’d tried to stand up and announce that she had a dream. But with King’s help, she didn’t have to.

The two of them together, the introvert and the extrovert, brought about huge changes in the United States, but if the message of the book were only that different human beings have different contributions to make, we might well say ho-hum and set it aside. So yes, there’s more to it than that.

Cain cites Warren Susman who makes the claim that America shifted from a 19^th-century Culture of Character (“serious, disciplined, honorable”) to a 20^th-century Culture of Personality, in which (Cain quoting Susman) “Every American was to become a performing self.” An extrovert is naturally a "performing self," and in the Culture of Personality, the extrovert is valorized as the ideal, the introvert devalued. Cain is not alone in thinking that this valorization of highly sociable, stimulation-seeking “go-getters” goes quite some distance to explaining the recent Wall Street debacle. There were those who saw the edge of the cliff and voiced their warnings, but they were derided as gloomy nay-sayers, afraid of their own shadows. The happy, get-rich-quick party crowd simply did not want to listen.

Even whether an introvert or an extrovert makes a better team leader turns out to depend on the make-up of the rest of the team and how the task at hand is structured. Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses. One of Cain’s repeated points, however, is that the strengths of the introverts are more easily discounted or even completely overlooked and unheard. She makes her points clearly and engagingly and backs them up with citations to research.

Whether the topic of a book is business success or world peace or how to raise kids or whatever, the ones I find most valuable offer not just theory but some kind of practical advice and strategies, and Cain comes through on this criterion, too. How should you go about finding a work environment in which you can flourish? Is it all right to “fake it”? How far can you “fake” being the type opposite from yourself and still be true to yourself? How can life partners with different needs and styles understand, accommodate, and enjoy each other over the long term?

Good stories, recent research, why it all matters, how you can apply it to your life—but maybe the single most important take-home lesson for the struggling introvert "in a world that can’t stop talking” is the permission Cain gives us (and invites us to give ourselves) to take the quiet time we need, away from the crowds. The book will be out in paper ($16) later this month, and I’ll be happy to order and ship.

Meanwhile, out in the woods in the afternoon with my dog, back home with a book, then enjoying a quiet evening with my darling and our dog, I could feel the stress of December slipping away in the peace that is January.

Savoring quiet

“Rebel” Going “Conservative”?

Forsythia in full bloom

I’ve written about Andrew Laties before, but it’s been a while. Turns out that the author of Rebel Bookseller (and how could I possibly have resisted the title?), is still around, and the name rang a bell, but without a citation to the book I would never have recognized him in the piece published by ForeWord magazine in their Spring 2012 issue.

A bit of background review is in order here. Laties has been a bookseller since he dropped out of college in 1979 and was hired by the manager of a new B. Dalton store in Chicago. He quickly went on from there to bookstore ownership. His book, Rebel Bookseller, advised would-be shopkeepers in his beloved field:

Improvise your own indie.

 Beat back the chains!

That was in 2005. Now? On a panel (Laties was there to promote his book) with bookseller Josh Spencer last September, the “rebel” was sorry that online seller Spencer had opened a storefront in his own neighborhood. Huh? The reasoning is so bizarre that lest I not be believed, I will here quote directly:

Unfortunately, in my experience bookstores like Josh Spencer’s, when successful, can be damaged by the gentrifying forces they unleash. By generating economic growth—because book-lover foot traffic attracts coffee-shop owners and restaurateurs—these kinds of pioneering stores can get priced out of the rental real estate they occupy. The alternative, establishing a bookstore in a library, could ensure that the store would not suffer from changes in real estate values.

You booksellers with open shops or thinking of opening same? You are driving up rents! How dare you? It’s your own throat you’re cutting with your browser-friendly Main Street atmosphere, and you should be ashamed of yourselves! All selling of used books should be done online and only online, or it should be done by Friends of Library groups, not private entrepreneurs!

–Sorry, I have to stop here a minute and ask (1) why Laties thinks bookstores are responsible for driving up rents and (2) why an improvement in a neighbor’s economy is seen as a bad result, other than the possibility that a bookstore will be priced out of the neighborhood. Do we booksellers really influence the rental market that much? Oh, yes, he says, because bookstores are followed by coffee houses and restaurants and overall neighborhood gentrification. (Why not blame the coffee houses?) Well, and is it the responsibility of any retailer to assure that property values remain depressed? This has got to be the most peculiar argument I have ever heard against opening a bricks-and-mortar shop selling used books! Why not credit bookstores with revitalizing neighborhoods? Why shouldn’t coalitions of property owners chase after booksellers, making them good, long-term rental offers in exchange for the gentrification service they provide?

[Skip this paragraph if you like, but I cannot resist a digression. There are people who say we should not be surprised that Aristotle argued in favor of slavery, given the times in which he lived, and they go on to say that we should not criticize him for that view. I cannot disagree more strongly. Aristotle’s teacher, Plato, who had some peculiar and reprehensible views of his own (e.g., his penchant for totalitarian government), was able to see that slavery was wrong. More to my present point, however, is the badness of Aristotle’s argument, added to the fact that he felt an argument was necessary. If everyone living at his time had accepted slavery as right and customary, he would have had no reason to mount a defense of it, so obviously there were other opinions. And then the argument, which I will not go over here, but which rests on an analogy that is discarded almost as quickly as it is brought in. As I say, it is a particularly bad argument, and Aristotle was the inventor of Western logic.]

Back to my tirade of the day: Whenever anyone advances a strange argument, it is worth asking why that person thought argument was necessary. Does it help to understand that the writer’s last two jobs have been running bookstores in conjunction with nonprofit museums? He is a salary-man now, not an independent. Moreover, he has developed and sells bookstore management services and would like to see them sold to more FOL (Friends of Library) bookstores. But no, I’m still puzzled. Obviously I'm not seeing the whole picture.

In analyzing argument, I go for structure first, then fill in details

A “bookstore” within a library does not have to pay rent, and it benefits from an endless stream of books donated to the library and from countless hours put in by dedicated volunteers. No one wants to see libraries put out of business, and no one wants to see library sales stop (least of all those of us who are the biggest spenders at those sales, buying stock for the stores we maintain at great expense and labor). Established library bookstores obviously have a place in today’s world also, although there my feelings are more mixed: whenever tax-supported institutions go into competition with small business, the playing field is far from level. But arguing against the opening of used bookstores in neighborhoods because they would drive up property values? Am I alone in finding this one of the strangest arguments put forth in our admittedly eccentric business?

What point or points does Laties most want to make? He wants to see bookshops open in libraries, and he doesn’t want bookstores to drive up rents in cheap neighborhoods, but the ‘why’ of these two elements and how they go together continues to elude me. Something else he says is that FOL groups should not be relying on professional booksellers to come in on a volunteer basis to price books for stores in libraries. He thinks it would be better to have experts on as paid staff.

Would I give up my independence for a salary and benefits? (Make me an offer, and I’ll think it over!) Is this what Laties has up his sleeve—a continued livelihood for us poor, struggling booksellers? One thing is certain: change is upon us. The world is changing for writers, for publishers, for booksellers, and for librarians. Andrew Laties has always had a lot of ideas. Maybe the ideas would be better off without some of the arguments. Or maybe the arguments would work better if it were clearer why he wants us to share his conclusions.

Tools for a Snowy Day

Don't look for snow shovels on today's post! The blizzard is raging, but my focus is still on books.

There is no such thing, in the abstract, as “too many books.” Can a poet have too many books of poetry, a chef too many cookbooks, a philosopher too many works of philosophy? Not if the books are serving the purposes of the various readers, whether that purpose is served daily, weekly or only once every few years.

Besides fiction, field guides and a lot of philosophy, I have a lot of books on drawing. It all started one year when David gave me such a complete beginner’s set of art equipment that I only had enough nerve to sharpen the pencils and try out pencils and eraser in the black-bound book of smooth, white, empty pages. We went to Florida that winter and the next, and with delight and dedication I took up my pencils and sketchbook to draw—my foot! David’s foot! An empty shoe! A palm tree! The second year I was braver and attempted entire scenes. Other than shopping and cooking, there were few demands on my time, and drawing helped me settle into a strange new place.

Then came two years without Florida, and here at home in Michigan I passed those winter months like the summer, without making a single sketch. Next, two Florida winters and an entire sketchbook filled. But this is silly! Michigan is my home, and it’s where I should be taking the time to absorb and record the world around me. My stillness project this year is about doing just that. So out come the books—not all those borrowed from libraries in Florida, of course, but certainly those I have collected for my own private library over the last half-dozen years.

One of the first I fell in love with, loving trees as I do, was Drawing Trees, by Henry C. Pitz (NY: Watson-Guptill, 1964). Here are the first sentences of the author’s preface:

As this introduction is being written, outside the studio window a first fall of wet snow has covered the ground and clings to the branches of the barren trees. With an overcast sky, the scene is essentially a black-and-white picture, in which the tracery of the trees is enhanced by this change in nature’s cycle.

- Henry C. Pitz, Drawing Trees

Certainly appropriate to the season, all that talk of snow! Well, it’s been two years since I’ve looked at Pike's book, and it captivates me anew with its straightforward lessons and clear illustrations, but the author is obviously addressing serious art students, not amateurs and dilettantes. For instance,

The exploring of new media and techniques is an exhilerating [sic] experience for the true artist and should be indulged in by the student freely and naturally, unmindful of any comment that technique spells death for the creative impulse. The creative spirit that is killed by technical investigation is a piddling thing that will not be missed.

I have never thought anyone would miss my "piddling" sketches were I to turn my back forever on the attempts! Drybrush, pen, carbon pencil, charcoal—I study the author’s drawings, noting appreciatively the effects he achieves with various media, and then I pick up once again my soft lead pencil and sharpen it to a new point. Time later for more ambitious experiments. Everything in good time. Don't rush me!

Books that speak to me more personally are those by Clare Walker Leslie. 

In fact, her advice is so perfectly aimed at my interests that it is as if she had me in mind when she wrote. Here is what her introduction says to the reader:

I find drawing to be the simplest, the most direct, and the least expensive art medium for studying nature. We have so encumbered ourselves today through sports, recreation, and hunting with an abundance of tools for “being in nature” that we have lost the greatest tool of all: simply sitting and watching. Drawing allows for this. We have also lost the ability to learn on our own and to trust our own learning. Nature drawing is a solitary pursuit. The experience is between ourselves and the object. Often it becomes more sketching than drawing, using the pencil more as a tool for taking notes of observations than for creating a lovely drawing.

- Clare Walker Leslie, Nature Drawing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980)

Leslie also recommends different media and different kinds of paper and experimentation with different techniques, but early in her chapter on “Methods and techniques” comes these refreshing and encouraging lines:

 ...Above all, enjoy your study. Use it as a time to be in full contact with nature without the distractions and worries that so flood our everyday human lives. If a day’s drawing results in nothing but torn-up pages but was fully enjoyed otherwise by being outdoors watching birds courting, studying various plant forms, or observing the wind blowing ripple patterns across a pond, then consider your day a success. Drawing should bring you to nature, not back you away from it. So be patient. Your way of drawing will change, evolve, and mature, as will your study of nature.

The Art of Field Sketching (Layton, UT: Peregrine Smith Books, 1993) continues in the same vein. For this author, drawing and nature are of equal importance, and one learns both together by sketching in the field. These books renew my acquaintance with terms I had forgotten, e.g., contour drawing, gesture sketch, and detailed drawing. The gesture sketch is important to me at this beginning stage of my learning, not only because it is a way to catch subjects that move quickly (dogs, squirrels, birds, etc.) but also because it must be done quickly and loosely, not with a nervous concern for results.

Giovanni Civardi’s Complete to Drawing (Tunbridge Wells, Kent: 2010; originally published in Milan, Italy) on the other hand, tells me so much more than I can take in that it’s overwhelming. There are pages and pages on drawing the human figure—pages of anatomically correct hands alone, in various poses. My solution is to turn to a section late in the book (pp. 279-80) where the author shows tonal drawings in four different stages. Yes, yes, I see! After studying those two pages for only a few minutes, I see the landscape from the car window very differently, composed into areas of light and dark, and I feel I have learned something. Every book on drawing gives me something, whether it's pages of examples, paragraphs of encouragement, or one new idea.

I have written before about Frederick Franck’s The Zen of Seeing and Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing. Franck was my earliest inspiration, in that he inspired me with the longing to draw, many years before I found the courage to try. The nature side of my study is excited by Paul Rezendes’s The Art of Tracking & Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks & Sign (Charlotte, VT: 1992) and an old, oft-reprinted Michigan Department of Natural Resources booklet, Michigan Wildlife Sketches.

There are too many relevant books to list, and I know there are many more that have yet to come my way. One more I want to mention from my currently active stack these days may seem only peripherally a nature book. Certainly not intended as a drawing book, the translation of Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, with photography by Jane English and calligraphy by Gia-Fu Feng, does have many illustrations of trees on its pages, but the thoughts fit my stillness project as well as the images. “In dwelling, be close to the land,” this book tells me. There is also an injunction to “Magnify the small.” Close to the land, with attention to small details, my studies fill me with contentment. Seeing a cold, cold week in the forecast, I did my outdoor hour on what looked like it would be the warmest day, and now I can only hope that next week will have at least one not-brutal hour for outdoor meditation with sketchbook and pencil. Another day I'll write about keeping warm while sitting still outdoors. People have wondered about that, and it's a crucial topic.