I have been without internet access since Monday. Initially I stomped and grumped and whined. But a funny thing happened midweek: while trying to distract myself, I slipped deeply into a WIP. Very deeply. It felt so good. And as my working hours acquired a steady beat, I warmed to unplugged life. What a fine, unencumbered and productive feeling it is to work without the pull of the world wide web! Now that reconnection is imminent (if you are reading this, I am back online), I am searching for ways to reinforce this beautiful (and productive) rhythm I’ve found. What luck to have had this book on my nightstand:
THE TRURO BEAR AND OTHER ADVENTURES
By Mary Oliver
Beacon Press, 2008
I basked in Mary Oliver’s poems and essays as I learned to bask in the quiet these past few days. To me, this is a book about slowing down, about taking the time to see, about encountering awe in every cobweb, embracing it with your eyes and ears and mouth, with your hands and your head and your heart. My favorite entry is an essay called “Swoon”, which starts this way:
“In a corner of the stairwell of this rented house a most astonishing adventure is going on.”
And, oh yes!, it is astonishing. I am reminded of my friends Jean-Henri Fabre (who is quoted, to my delight, in the frontispiece of this volume) and Sue Hubbell. I am reminded, again, that in order to see incredible things one must look. Only look.
Here’s to looking and to embracing the quiet … in spite of the internet.