In celebration of the book

I’m having a bowl of ice cream and getting around to the editorals about nine o’clock tonight when I notice this one written for the Washington Post by James Billington, the librarian of Congress. It is an article in defense…even celebration…of the book. Everything is going digital, the book business is in transition, and 140 character messages are destroying, as Billington says, the basic unit of civilized discourse – the sentence.

This is why we celebrate books.

I haven’t written for this blog in a long time. There hasn’t been much to say about the publication of The Given Self and I’ve thought I ought to sum up the experience and call it a day. I never did much of what I started out to do: examine that experience. I’m not going to do it tonight.

Writing a book and having a book in the public milieu is an experience that goes far beyond what happens with the publisher, editor, printer, media.

The Given Self just saved me from sinking into a depression. Yes, I was getting depressed, and damn it, I did not want to. I wanted so badly to talk myself out of it, to snap out of it, to meditate out of it. It wasn’t supposed to be happening. By God, I was going to get myself under control. I even tried books on positive thinking, the kind of books I’ve often accused of being a plague on literary culture. Following this advice, I looked myself in the eyes in the mirror and told myself that I am beautiful and healthy and peaceful. It felt as much like a lie as anything I’d ever spoken, but I was ready to try anything.

Then for some unknown reason I read my own words:

You have the right to feel what you feel.

I read my own website where I named a whole unknown group of us to be “people in transition.” I described, or quoted my book describing some of the symptoms of this transition…like feeling fragile, weak and weepy or as if you’re getting Alzheimer’s. I read my own words describing what a violence it is when we are told not to feel what we feel.

Suddenly, I had to see myself as perpetrating that violence, and I had to stop.

Okay, I also talked to a friend who asked me, “Do you realize how hard you’re being on yourself?”

I am convinced that we writers write for ourselves (just as readers read for themselves). It is a strange paradox, but it seems that even those who write the positive thinking books, write them for themselves. We write because we need to tell ourselves something. We write because we’re challenged to find the light even and especially in the dark. And we put what we write “out there” because we just know there’s someone else fumbling around in the same darkness.

And that is why books, traditional or not, digital or on paper, continue to need to be celebrated.

Radical Acceptance

I don’t know what I expect. I set the alarm on the cell phone (well, Donny does). I finally lost the patience for the clock/radio/phone – now vintage I suppose – that sits by the bed. The phone part hasn’t worked for a long time so it’s been Henry’s play phone and the settings kept getting switched from a.m. to p.m and 5:30 to 9. So now the cell phone rings at 5:30 and, when I still don’t get up ‘till 6:00, I’m not sitting down until 6:30 and the darkest part of morning is already over. The sky lightens first to its deep midnight blue. I was getting my coffee when that change began to happen. By the time I was looking up from the floor during my stretching exercises it was turning a lighter blue and now is drifting to gray. I really like to start out in the darkest dark. Call me kooky, call me crazy, but that’s what I like.

In the midst of the Spring flooding of the rivers and the historic health care bill, I’m in the throws of accepting what I like and what I don’t. I wrote about this in The Given Self and people write back to me about how much they needed someone to encourage them to this acceptance. Maybe not so much the things they like, but the things they don’t. The things they feel. ALL of the ways that they feel.

The more people write, the more I have to work at this. My words, and their words, push me (in a good way) to keep going with my own radical acceptance. It’s got to do with a lot of things that are tougher than getting out of bed when the alarm goes off, so I don’t mean to make light of them. It’s just that there’s no explanation for some things…and that’s okay. That “being okay” seems to be the big hurdle to get over. At least for me, if I like something few do, or feel uncomfortable about things that others accept, I get hung up when I feel I have to have an explainable reason. My radical acceptance is about accepting that “I just do” and that there’s no right or wrong about that.

It’s been a long time in coming, but now that it is coming, it’s coming on strong…with the help of a few friends like Susannah Azzaro.

Got this from her yesterday and asked if I could share it. It is a rewrite (inspired by The Given Self) of a Marianne Williamson quote.

Marianne's Version:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. From Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191).

Susannah's Version:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are powerful beyond measure. Our deepest fear comes from our belief that the crazy goofy shit that comes up for us isn't part of our light. We ask ourselves, What if the feelings I'm having are wrong? Actually, who are you not to have whatever feelings do come up? You are a child of God. Your discounting of your Given Self does not serve the world. There is nothing more enlightened than sharing your funny, goofy, neurotic, radical self with the world. We are all meant to shine in this way, just as children do. The problem is that we discount our feelings, impressions, and experiences if they don't fit in with what we perceive to be the status quo. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us -- and the glory of God can be pretty messy and painful and hilarious sometimes. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own messy, painful, and hilarious light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”