It’s High Summer in the South, hot hot hot, sultry all night, not a breath of cool in the dawn breeze, but the grasses are growing verdant in the heavy rains and my brain is growing heavy, un-purged of its burden of thought and memory.

There’s yet much that needs to be written, much to twist into truer shapes, and little time to live in that world. I’m moving toward carving out some space for it, but when that will happen and when new words will appear in this magical space it’s hard to say.

I have a new practice that is helping greatly to clear my mind of the trash that accumulates, and gradually clearing my life of obstacles to the actual writing. Perhaps it will happen soon. I’m feeling drawn to the story, motivated to get back to work on it.

No promises. Intention is growing. Gravid.

Alas, May and June have passed with no new content… There is more written, awaits rewrites and editing, and more to write. Just no time for writing.

I did a ten-day course at the new Vipassana Center here – it was wonderful! The best thing I’ve ever done! It was hard being away for so long, especially being so close, but it was so worth it! I’ve felt highly energized, deeply happy, and very peaceful for the weeks since. I plan to do service and further courses there. It is the best presentation of the dharma I’ve encountered, and by far the best practice. It is what I’ve been looking for, the ‘something more’ I’ve needed, for years. I had nearly given up on my shikantaza practice, but this has revitalized my daily practice.

The pottery business has been demanding, as have home and family. Giana has been sick some, but produced tons of wonderful wonder pottery for the Bamboo Festival – at which we did pretty well and had a great time. Now we’re building inventory for the Fall season.

John and Manna got married! Hooray! And are back happily working away in Savannah. Liana is in Spain, struggling to communicate with chefs about her vegetarian dietary needs, Luke is working for the paper and juggling 24-7, Adrian is working all the time, and the dogs are driving us all a little batty! (They totally trashed the house while we were away for four days!)

The bamboo grove is more wonderful every year, and politics in America more insane. I spend more time in the grove and on the cushion every week, and less time reading the political blogs etc. It’s not that I’m apathetic – I care very much – it’s just that I’m disillusioned and see my energy as best directed toward positive growth rather than into the black hole the political system seems to have become. I am skeptically optimistic about Obama, and hope that he may begin some kind of transformation of the system, but it’s a long shot at best. If McCain wins, I’m out in the grove full time. We must become more like the bamboo, build an underground rhizome system that will spread, penetrate, and emerge where least expected! A true Green Revolution! The Bamboo Underground!

I do plan to blog here more frequently, and to get back to working on the book. But I may have to get another job to pay for next semester for Liana…. Not looking good. Retirement artificially boosted my income for ’07, so her financial aid may be way down. She may indeed have to sit out a semester sometime to let us catch up. But I’m still glad she’s doing the summer Spain thing… will be important to her personal development. It hurts me to see her stressed and depressed, but I’m sure she’ll grow from it all.

Love to all!

(More soon!)

Yes, well. Progress is slow, but I am feeling some better tonight and have about 20 chapters posted now! There are a couple of gaps – something else may go after “My Decision pt. I”, and “The Wall” will definitely go between “Hide” and “Journal, Vietnam.” That leaves me with only three or four more chapters of the Trip story to write, and three or four more pieces of narrative/journal, one of which is mostly done. So I am making progress. That helps me to be more motivated, and less depressed…

If anyone is listening… I would really like response to how it flows as far as the order of pieces – I keep revisiting that and wondering if I should be more regular, like always have narrative first, journal after or vice versa, or whether it’s okay for that to vary.

I am reading Sonya Huber’s wonderful book Opa Nobody, which is also creative non-fiction, and love the seamless way she blends her own story, the meta-commentary, the factual material, and the imagined material. I wonder if I have overdone my efforts to separate everything with sections and dates and orthographic distinctions… 

Writer’s blues

I’ve been writing at this book, off and on, for over 10 years now, and some days I just can’t see the point. As my wife has reminded me on occasion, writing at this damn book don’t pay the bills. I don’t know what it does, beyond fill some compulsive need I have to get it all out.

As I read over it, re-writing and re-re-writing, agonizing over ‘what to leave in, what to leave out,’ – which includes who to leave in and how much of their part of this fits with the purpose of the book – I often feel total futility and depression over the whole project. It just doesn’t seem good enough to me, and I don’t know that I can make it any better. I want it to be better, I’m willing to work at making it better, but I just don’t know that I really know how. I know that parts of it are good, but it doesn’t seem consistent to me… And it doesn’t seem to have continuity – it may be asking too much of the reader to keep all this confusing stuff straight.

Seems I’m spending more time on file management and web posting than on actual writing lately, and that’s frustrating.

I do have some clarity on what the book is really about: it’s about who goes to war and who doesn’t and why they go or don’t go. That’s the hook, the connection with today, the topical aspect. Thus I’m thinking of an epilog or essay at the end addressing that directly. The nut is, I went not out of bravery but out of fear. It was easier to go than not go, easier to conform than resist. So the story is showing how that worked out, all the pressures and rationalizations that made it possible for me to go. Those guys who went to Canada or to the brig were the brave ones.

The thing about what happens – happened – to those who went, me ‘n Charlie, is really a secondary level of purpose. It also has some topical value, as in pointing out to people what is happening to these poor guys – even tho they volunteered – who get sent to Iraq.

So I will keep on struggling through this, whether I ever finish or not, and certainly whether or not it ever seems acceptable for publication. Maybe at least a few people in my family will one day read it.