Where are you? I am asking this question again as I am in a different place than I was the last time I answered Carolyn See’s question. Carolyn asks, in “Making a Literary Life“, to look up from the page and ask ourselves where we are. Where am I? Well, I am in a new place. I am in a place we have been for seven days. I am in a place devoid of long-term memory. There is no expectation of the smells of Iranian food coming from the apartment to the left of me. I have no dread filled anticipation that the neighbor to the right of me will come home and begin to yell at his girlfriend, or God forbid worse, followed by the sorrowful sounds of a woman who feels trapped and disempowered. There are no slaps of hand against water in the name of fitness or loud shouts and murmurs of instructions to maillot clad mermaids running in place, kicking and embracing their noodles so they can “work those abs” and “get your heart rate up”.
Even though I am not a woo-woo type gal, and I think Feng-shui is pretty much Feng-hooey, I am noticing that I feel differently in our new place with our new furniture and my old things.
I am in a new place with two chairs that I love to sit in while I write the first draft and a loungey sofa that is the perfect soft home for rewriting. I sit on my “Dolce lounge” with erect posture and type industriously as Lily lounges on our new sofa, her face resting on a pillow that I paid way too much for when we first moved to Chicago at a design store that made me feel insecure and yet promised that if I bought all my home furnishings there that one day I could be cool, chic and fabulous.
I have things around me that are devoid of memory like our brand new stainless steel refrigerator with a computer more complex than the Apple IIe I first owned and things rich with association that could each inspire an hour-long narrative, like the Asian lamp. It was the first item I ever bought for my first professional office. I remember shopping for that first office like it was yesterday only it was six years ago. Each decision felt like it was a make or break one and that one wrong move would take me into not only a bad design choice but ultimately, I feared, it would irrevocably damage my career. A lamp was not just a lamp it was something that communicated who I was as a professional and I wanted to be sure that the lamp communicated my gravitas, professionalism, and work ethic. Finally I found the lamp, the lamp that sits in my living room today and not in an office.
As I turned on the light today the sound sent me into a Pavlovian kind of reverie of association. I remember turning that light off each evening in my office and simultaneously planning how I would escape my trichotillomaniac boss who seemed intent on pulling me apart hair by hair, piece by piece, and day by day. I remember the day I finally got the courage to leave her employ with a full head of hair and dry, brittle and damaged confidence. I remember leaving the office as cautiously as a whisper carrying the lamp to my car and finding a safe if an ineffective home for it in the back seat of my car as I made my stealthy escape to unemployment.
Even though we are living in the same condo complex we have lived in for the last three months we are in a different building and we have a very different view. I feel strangely calmer in our new place, especially as I feel that our new home is a better match to my introversion. I am not as likely to see cars and people walking by. I can no longer can see the alley, the health club or the commerce that all seemed to say to me “you should be out; being home is bad. Get out!!” Instead we face a people free doppelganger of 5′x3′ patios filled with a claustrophobic chaos of bicycles, lawn furniture, and barbecues. When Lily and I look out the window we see no one and in that absence of anthropos I feel a special kind of joy. All the other people in the other condos are off working in jobs they may or may not hate, while I am home and writing.
In Carolyn’s book, “Making a Literary Life” she tells of a guy who believes he has to have the perfect place to write, he requires absolute silence. When a truck would drive by he would not be able to write for hours, days and he might not ever get back to where he was prior to the interruption. This is not my issue. In our new place we have a constant rush of traffic that I can hear hum by me and it sooths me in the same way Lily is soothed by her toy with the simulated heartbeat in it. The noise helps quiet my inner noise. The sea of autos that streams by seems to amplify the contrast of the quiet of my home. Both Lily and I look up from our work, she abandons her bone and I my laptop, when a siren goes by and then when it has passed it we both immediately get back to our business.
Something about the more isolated and introverted local and the din of Escalades, Hummers and the other V-8’s that populate the streets of Valencia seem to serve as an auditory reminder of the here and now that exists even as I write about then and there. Total silence might mute the influences that surround me and leave me poorer for the lack of stimulus. Each bouncing truck, racing motorcycle, and sputtering junker can be filled with the gift of inspiration and take me down an unexpected avenue of association.
I think I am also in a different internal address. I feel like I am no longer in a hotel waiting for my life to begin. That is not a feeling I have had since we left Lake Bluff last February. Rather, I feel at home even though this is a temporary home. I even know my address and my phone number for the first time in 11 months. Perhaps most importantly I am not hating L.A. quite as much as did when we arrived in June. I even realized the other day that when we leave L.A. there will be things I will actually miss about the land of Eternal Sunshine.
I am not yet sure how my hedonia, or dare I say happiness, will impact my work. Happily it hasn’t impacted my output or energy for writing. I am still writing almost all day and everyday, only now that I have my furry child there are plenty of breaks for the three p’s: potty training, playing and petting. I do notice that the things I am thinking about in our new place are different than what I was thinking about when we lived just 500 yards away from here. There is a kind of peace and settledness that I feel today that is bound to impact my work for better or for worse.
I know this all might sound like an enormous rationalization for a philosophy of ‘move and change your life’. That is not an argument that I am trying to make. Rather, as a writer, I do think that we (as everyone is)are affected by our environment and I believe that it is best to use that and notice the influence of our environment instead of trying to create a hermetically sealed perfect environment devoid of distractions. A pied-à-terre in Paris is not how one becomes a writer. One becomes a writer by writing wherever they are and noticing the rich material that is all around them everywhere.
The other day I wrote fifteen pages while I waited for He-weasel to get his haircut and got lines of dialogue from a family who were there to get their daughter’s “hair sorted out”. I write while I am driving( only at stop lights and when the 405 has come to a full and complete stop). Words, phrases and ideas come to me when I am in the shower and when I am at the supermarket and other places that start with the letter ‘s’. No trip to a writers colony or perfect writing desk or sound-proofed office with a foot of insulation is necessary to write. What is required is to write no matter where you are and better still to notice what is going on around you as you write
.
Thank you so much for your understanding, you’re sweet and lovely.
I’m not going to disappear, I’m just not appearing so many times a week.
Also I’ll have a group of favourites in which your blog is in
Love
xoxo
I’m happy to hear you write of better days. I knew they would come, as they always do. It’s just bearing the other in the meantime. Having Lily will give you another purpose. Enjoy your day.
What a lovely, thoughtful post. It is so nice to read of happier times. I am glad that lily is there to brighten you life a bit.
“Do not travel far to other dusty lands, forsaking your own sitting place; if you cannot find the truth where you are now, you will never find it.” Dogen
Looks like you’ve tapped into ancient wisdom on your writing path.
Anna G.
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful post. I could feel your peace emulate from the post and come into an inner peace within myself- magnificent writing.
So glad your new place is so nice- sounds like you and Lily are both enjoying your new life
Inspiration has struck me and I will be writing today – at the zoo.
A beautiful reverie. I am fascinated by the way the geography of our life intersects with the terrain of who we are as people. This post demonstrates that so clearly, especially the link between writing place and writing self. Thank you for writing this essay and sharing it! Great insights.
Kirie
You describe inner harmony with your immediate surroundings very well. It’s good to be able to see things around you that increase that feeling with the deeper understanding that all is impermanent in the physical world. I’m continually coming to grips with that too. I miss our huge sky view with the mountains and sunrise in the distance but the woods behind our place now calm me when the world and my job are too much. I too have a collection of things specially chosen since we’ve moved so many times the things themselves have become home.
Your hedonia increases my own.
You are so funny and wiity, LBR, and use words in such an incredibly unique way – love “Pavlovian kind of reverie of association” . . .
xoxox,
CC
Your writing definitely feels different somehow, and absolutely in the positive. More collected maybe? I can’t quite pinpoint it.
It did get me wondering though, with all those classic books we love and read time and time again, I wonder what sort of place their author was when they wrote it? And what happens if you’re halfway through a work when your environment changes? Would the difference be palpable to the reader?
Definitely some food for thought.
xx
Writers write, and that’s what you do.
I think a change of location is so good for the soul: new smells, new sounds, new irritations.
Sounds like things are going well!
Pearl
…Just like a gold fish needs a clean fresh water…you simply need to write… Hope I make sense cos’ sometimes I swear I don’t?!
Dear…need my caffeine fix NOW!
Seeker: I really do understand. If I had a job or any other obligations there is no way I could keep up blogging like I do. It is really time consuming in the best sense.
I am thrilled you will still be around and happy to be in your favorites( the feeling is mutual).
amor y besos
xoxo
as always, a thoughtful entry. the new figurative and literal addresses is suiting ya!
Julianne: Now that I am where I am I can see the value of where I was. That hindsight is really good.;-)
Thank you. It is nice to be where I am today.
Mardel: She certainly brightens my life and also she gets me to take breaks where I never used to. Soon she will get me walking( once her vaccinations are done).
Anna: I absolutely love that quote. I do think there is a time for a heroes journey to foreign lands. But, I do think that change is possible right where you are. Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
You know, I really should despise you for these posts ’cause I wish I could churn them out like this.
One becomes a writer by writing wherever they are and noticing the rich material that is all around them everywhere.
True, but I still think I’d prefer Paris as to the Cleveland suburbs.
The other day I wrote fifteen pages while I waited for He-weasel to get his haircut
??? How long is his hair? FIFTEEN pages? What the bloody hell is your secret? Bottle it, and I’ll buy it.
Paula: Thank you so much. I am so glad you like it. I did feel a peace when I wrote it and I still feel that peace. I am so glad I could transmit that feeling to you. That is lovely to hear.
What is interesting is that the layout is almost exactly the same. I am sure many people wouldn’t notice the difference between the two places but I am a bit obsessed
with noticing minutae and so the change seems HUGE to me.
Tessa~Scoffs: That is great news. And, would you say hello to the polar bears for me.:-)
Kirie: I am mildly obsessed with noticing the emotional shifts and energies I feel in different places and around different people. I think that I have had a lot of projective identification in my early life so I am constantly noticing ‘is this me or is it this place or this person’ and ‘did I feel this before I got here and who did I felt when I left’.
I am so pleased you enjoyed and found some insights here. I never dare to assume my insights are universal except the notion that writers write and that they/we have a richness of material around us just waiting to be noticed( that, I believe, is absolutely and objectively true).
Susan: I guess as I have felt such disharmony with my surroundings and have documented that it makes me able to notice when harmony happens and what did it. But, I think if I skipped the part about noticing the disharmony I wouldn’t have gotten to the harmony part. I hope that makes some sense.
I do think that awareness of impermanence heightens hedonia, if one can tolerate the existential horror that that awareness can bring( there are times I can’t).
I am also at present keenly aware of the stories that things hold for us and how it is good for me to be surrounded by a mix of things that are without story and things with story. To just have one or the other leaves me feeling ungrounded and/or stuck.
My hedonia is increased by knowing I have increased yours.:-D
CC: Sometimes I worry my use of language is a bit much. I literally was lying in bed worrying last night about using the word “anthropos”. But, I am tickled, delighted and all around pleased that you like.
xoxo
Pretty Face:I worried that my happiness my make me lose something. I have the myth that depth and depression go together like peanut butter and jelly.
I too am intrigued by how biography, geography and psychology and the change in any of those impacts a work. I wish someone would do a study of the classics and see if someone had a huge crisis: death, divorce, move,nervous breakdown, etc. and how that changed/impacted the work. Really interesting idea.
xo
Pearl: New stimulus and influences are almost always good for the art if not for the heart. I didn’t mean for that to be a poem.;-)
LENORENEVERMORE:If I am a goldfish I am the kind that swims in a triple espresso.;-)
SUB: I think the house you picked for me would be even better for me and for the writing.;-)
Randal: No, it is I that envy you for your use of language and your ability to write such deep and rich metaphors. Yes, I can write lots and lots and lots( and that came from really embracing Anne Lamotts’ idea of writing the shittiest first draft possible).
The reason I could write 15 pages is that he had to wait an hour to get into Supercrapcuts and then there was the 30 minutes for the crap cut itself( never again will I let him do that. I have booked him an appt. at my salon next time.)
I prefer Paris to Cleveland or to Valencia but I don’t have Paris. I have f’n Valencia and L.A. and to not use what I have seems sort of a waste to me. There is so much material here that it is almost manna from a heaven, so to speak.
I’m so glad to hear that your home is once again beginning to feel like a sanctuary, and that your creativity is gushing forth. Many people are natural wanderers; I need to feel grounded to function properly. Leave the drafty garrets with crate bookshelves to the college students!
(word verification: wammoodle!)
Inspiring as always my dear! I am so glad you are feeling more peaceful where you are.
I love your use of words… your writing style is grand!
I love the little hints of Lily in your writing too!
Good to hear you are liking your new location!
I am like you only my constant thoughts are about paintings… I see things as future paintings! I have a hard time turning off at night to sleep… I even dream of painting.
Sigh… if only I could do it full time!
Obviously something inside you shifted, too…
Wow – this sounds like a great leap forward for you – what will you talk to Igor about?
So, now to the serious matter – did you really have a boss that pulled out and ate her own hair?
Can’t wait to read the book that you are writing – especially the stuff about getting ‘hair sorted’.
xx
How utterly wonderful to have found some homey-ness. And really glad the newish digs are a little more secluded!
Like a favorite spot or place to write, for me it is the journal that I assault with pen. as often as I can.
It takes me days to find a new journal. Often the cover is a different colour, or different material. It just wont bend right, or too much in many cases. The last journal, purchased in a fit of panic as I was down to three pages in old one, was done in a book store complete with a block line up at the cash. Mattered not, as I found the “perfect” one.
For this time anyway.
Great post as per usual!
David
So heartfelt and warming. Brilliant!
I notice the difference environment makes as well. I am very messy in my own apartment, but selfconsciously tidy at other people’s. But perhaps this is just good manners. Still, I wonder how this year would’ve been different if I had taken the apartment across the hall . . .
Having a peaceful home does wonders for the soul.
Deja: I am so with you. My things do anchor me and make me feel surrounded by my life, my story and all that is symbolic of me and not to have those things for a year was quite a challenge.
Kristen:It is nice to feel at home again. It is not my forever home, but it is our home for now.
Fifi Flowers:Thank you so much, Fifi. I am tickled like champagne bubbles tickle me( in a wonderful way) that you like my style.;-)
Lily is definitely part of my life and hence my writing. I look up from my writing a lot more since Lily moved in with us. I take lots of breaks to play and sigh with delight.
Like you, when I am in bed I am still thinking about writing. It is so nice that we have both found something we love so much that it isn’t like work.
Braja:It must have, huh?:-)
Imogen:I thought Igor and I would have nothing to talk about. How wrong I was.
I don’t know what she did with her hair but she did pull it all out. I really do feel bad for her she was a very wounded individual and I know she was enormously insecure and anxious and she seemed to take all of her anxiety and self-esteem issues out on me. It was not a good time.
Thanks, I look forward to you reading the book too because that will mean it is published and I can hire you to help me with my literary wardrobe.;-)
Good to know that Igor won’t be down on his income because of Lily and your acceptance of place – hate to think of him starving!
So glad you’re away from her now – doing something that you love and excel at.
Sal:I treasure privacy and that sense of feeling great about coming home. I haven’t felt that since I left Chicago. It is good to be home.
Dave: I so get the importance of the right writing equipment. VERY important. I am going to do a W.I.V post on that soon.
For me the most magic notebooks tend to be those black and white composition notebooks. There is nothing posh or glam about them but they really work for me.
Thanks! Glad you like it and thanks for sharing your writing place!:-)
Make do: Merci, mon amie!
Andromeda:I really believe that spaces have an impact on psyche and that is why I am so interested in architecture. I think it would be an interesting exercise to write a piece based on an apartment you almost lived in, maybe starting with the idea “How my life would have turned out differently if I had lived there.”
The Blonde Duck: I feel like Dorothy today, there is no place like home.;-)
Imogen: Igor will never go hungry. Beverly Hills shrinks will never go hungry.
I am so glad I got out of her office. It was crazy bad. Someday I will write about it. She had all kinds of crazy like she would count the number of envelopes I used and she had special chairs I was not allowed to sit and what she would do with my clients is too horrible to write. Baaaaad! But, I am free and never have to be in that kind of environment again.
Your writing is utterly beautiful. You sound peaceful and I envy your days writing with a gorgeous pup at your side.
I agree that environment affects writing; whilst in the countryside my writing becomes poetic and romantic. In London, it is sharper and cutting with an edge of melancholy
xsx
Sarah:Thank you so much for your very kind compliment.Lily is a lovely writing companion. She does occasionally want to eat my writing, but I guess that means she has good
It is great to hear your experience of how environment affects your writing. It just makes sense that it would.
Your writing is beautiful and what a lovely post.
Glad that you are calmer in your new place and that you can be at home writing ~ must be true bliss.
Enjoy your weekend
Hugs
Carolyn
writing in coffee shops has always been one of my favorite things, even if I don’t always have much to say when I’m there. It amazes me how much a change in surroundings can shift my mood, whether it be for better or for worse.
This makes me want to run home and size up my home, and find ways to make it that much more “me”!
Kieran and Aidan (F1 and F2) send furry greetings to Lily!
You are a poet. A poet with a good head of hair.
Carolyn:Thank you for your very kind compliments.
Being at home in my home and my writing are very good indeed. Happy weekend to you to, Carolyn.
K:You have plenty of good coffee houses to write in your corner of the world, I envy you that.
That joke/cliche about “location, location, location: I think is true of so many things. I think our location has a larger impact on our interior landscape than it is often credited.
I love that you want to make your home more you. It is so nice to have a space that reflects your values, personality and specific tastes and not just settling for utility.
Lily sends kisses back to F1 and F2.:-)
WendyB: You have given me two compliments that are at odds with my sense of self. 1) I think I cannot write poetry and 2) I hate my mass of troll hair that takes so long to work with. Thank you for making me question my self perceptions.
Food for thought: what is the difference between Feng Shui and your feeling the change of ambiance at your new place, besides centuries of studying that very kind of thing? On another subject thanks for the beautiful writing. I just love your writing, Belette.
Frenchee: I guess, for me, the difference is that I don;t believe that because I was born the year of the whatever that I cannot face North or I will have bad luck. I am not a fan of sciences that promise good or bad luck based on things that strip of us our personal agency. Yes, the condo we were in was not as much a match for me, but if I listened to Feng SHui it might have told me I would have bad luck with money, romance and healthy if we lived there. I learned a lot while I was there and I guess I think we make our own luck and the other half of chaos. This is just my POV and I ask nobody to share it. My He-weasel is into Feng Shui to some degree and for a while he was saying we had to take down pictures we love and replace them with pictures of the sea and fire. I would feel worse not being surrounded with things I loved than to have pictures that were supposed to up my luck. Sorry for the long answer to the short question.
Thank you do much for your very kind compliment, it means a lot to me.
Bisoux!
Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Belette. If Feng Shui proscribes not facing north and changing out beloved artwork then it is fooey.
I don’t know that much about it but the idea of patterns or subtle order in a physical space is intriguing to me.
Frenchee: I too am very interested in the psychological impact of environment and how symbols affect our psyche but when a “science” tells me if I put a desk in a certain place in my room it means I am going to die I have to say that I am dubious.
I’m really enjoying this series. Thanks for the thought-provoking inspiration and ideas.