integrity in work

Today I finished the rewrite of my first novel. I've been considering the writing process this week, and "work" in general. What it means to do good work. How to balance the varying kinds of work I do.

My psychotherapy work with clients is easy to hold with integrity, easy to define what that means. It is private work, and sacred, and my commitment is both to witness and contain, and equally important, to keep myself intact and healthy so I have the strength to uphold my end of the respectful partnership.

Integrity in writing feels more nebulous. I write mostly fiction, and without outlines or plots drawn ahead of time. I work from a kernel of something that expands as it goes, follow the clues of character and story where they lead me. And yet, at some point, the pages take on a form that has its own integrity, and my task then is to honor that.

This rewrite is a ms that got a lot of attention several years ago. It was good then, it's better now, and I'm not sure if it simply wasn't ready to be finished before or if I've looked at it with fresh eyes and seen something more to do. I feel now it's more marketable, and determining how to move toward that, while keeping the integrity of the story intact, has been a challenge.

On a more mundane level, there are endless chores and tasks associated with the daily management of a home and a barn. I try to find the zen in doing those chores, and while I can easily get caught up in the frenzy of wanting them all done and checked off some master list, I also feel the effect of doing them well, for their own sake, and finding incentive in what the little things mean to the bigger picture. Small things done well can be profound.

How to transfer this to children is a puzzle right now. The concept and the visceral satisfaction in a job well done, even when the job is mucking a stall or cleaning a bathroom sink.

hiatus

Not an intended one, but I've had nearly a week without working on my book, and woke up this morning with a slight headache, wondering how to get back to it smoothly. There is so much to do in a day, much of it pleasurable, but often enough one thing has to be set aside to get to another.

As is my morning habit, I randomly opened the book of quotes I have had for many years - A Guide For the Advanced Soul by Susan Hayward - and read the page.

"Every now and then go away,
have a little relaxation,
for when you come back
to your work
your judgement will be surer;
since to remain constantly at work
will cause you to lose power
of judgement...

Go some distance away
because the work appears smaller
and more of it
can be taken in at a glance,
and a lack of harmony
or proportion
is more readily seen.

Leonardo Da Vinci


So. I am back from my hiatus and trust the editing will be that much more effective. Here's to harmony and perfect proportion.

and on another note entirely...

what do you do when it's too cold to ride, the wind outside makes you too restless to write, and cleaning the house holds no appeal at all?

make lunch, mugs of hot chai, and pop in Shakespeare in Love.

:)

extravigant minutiae

My ability to get out and about with the camera has been interrupted lately - the digital is my husband's and it's his passion, so it stays with him most of the time. Plus, I'm not all that comfortable with all the settings. I want my old Nikon FM and the ability to go in the darkroom and make my own prints, red light darkness and the tangy smell of chemicals, the swish of the developer in the stainless steel can, the burble of fix as the prints are flipped, bare-fingered.

But then they'd have to be scanned and all that. So.

For today I'm the camera.

Some recent snapshots via my own eyes:

On Sunday my daughter rode in her first big horse show. First time out jumping, period. The stadium course was the most complex one she's ever done - ten solid jumps laden with flowers, no straight lines, complicated pattern, maximum height and width for her class. She was visibly nervous, face tight and lips set, but when I asked if she wanted to ride it, she said YES. Adamantly. Her pony was flustered by the applause after each round, shying sideways, prancing, and by the time they entered the arena, he was a bit wound up. She got off course midway and at the next jump he refused, quite suddenly, and she fell. Big covered arena, surrounded by riders and trainers and family members and spectators and a judge... a course she was suddenly in the midst of and confused by. A pony who clearly wanted to be Done With This. She stood up, got her pony's reins, brushed herself off, and remounted. Tried again. Two more times he refused, but she stayed on, circled him around, and the fourth time he jumped it perfectly. Her tenacity was astounding. This snapshot files with one I remember from her second year: our family in the mountains, hiking to Linville Falls. The two year old who absolutely refused to be carried, but hiked the whole way there and back on her two little feet. People stopped and commented on her tough persistence.

Yesterday: a neighbor's horses got loose while she was at work. They came straight to our fence line, seeking the company of other horses. Keil Bay alerted us with his deafening hyena squeal. I envisioned a horse fight in our own herd, but he was squealing at the neighboring herd on the other side of our fence. Suddenly they spooked and ran back toward their property. The snapshot - four bay horses of varying sizes, cantering free, such an odd sight but beautiful. The wildness of horses is hidden with our domesticity, but there it was, flowing manes, tails, no fences.

Today: white sky, the bare black branches of trees in silhouette. Wind rushing, cold air. A glimpse of winter, nearly colorless but for the evergreens, which keep us hopeful.

simple pleasures

Today we got hay from our favorite local hay grower. He has the most beautiful, organic orchard grass hay around, and has been very generous in loaning his farm truck when our minivan died and we lost our hay transport vehicle.

Now we can get a good-sized load in the horse trailer, and when my husband pulled up with the hay around noon, I ran out, as I always do, to watch the bales being stacked in our hay room.

I do not know why this gives me so much pleasure.

I suppose it comes from all the years of wanting horses at home and finally having them. The hay is the full cupboard, akin to the full house feeling of standing in the barn aisle at feeding time while four heads wait patiently over stall doors.

And then Keil Bay knees his stall door with one huge bang. Reverie has its limits.

Next to getting hay, I love when the shavings guy dumps our huge load. It lies beneath the blue tarp like a huge cat sleeping, or a small whale waiting. The cats, Osage, Dickens, and Keats, careen down the sides and eventually end up on top, like Sphinxes.

Putting clean shavings in means forking them into the wheelbarrow multiple times and emptying, one load after the other, into the stalls. My favorite part is to spread the shavings, bank them against the stall walls, smooth them out, feel the springy, fragrant pine beneath my feet. The equivalent of making a bed up with crisp clean sheets. The thought of rest to come.

When we moved here to our farm, a full year ago, I imagined my pleasure in these simple things would pale with the repetition.

It hasn't.