When writing fiction about childhood and rites of passage, one can't escape the sorrow of maturation, the painful process of shedding one's skin to inhabit a new identity. Oral narratives evoke these transformations in often stark and vivid language: an armless maiden on a journey to become whole; the girl whose feet are battered from walking seven years in iron shoes; the hero who is torn to pieces and tossed over a cliff until a fantastic cow licks the broken part together and restores him. The transition from one identity to a new one is where the tension of the narrative lies–will one survive such a process? So, I was taken by these two quotations from very different works and wrote them down in my notes:
The first is from Carlos Ruiz Zafón's gorgeous gothic novel, The Shadow of the Wind: "One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. When the mind can comprehend what has happened, the heart's wounds are already too deep." Imagine the intensity of such felt knowledge as a child and, later, the revelation in adulthood about the long-lasting impact of such a wound. For the child, it is about surviving the injuries; for the adult, it is trying to reconcile the contradictions of such moments in one's life.
The second quotation comes from Early Spring, the memoir of Danish author Tove Ditlevsen. Ditlevsen grew up in a brutal and barbaric working-class family with little respect for her as a girl and even less for her hopes of becoming a writer. It was a stifling, heart-breaking world; it is a marvel that she survived it and eventually thrived as an author. She muses about her childhood experience in a dark chapter that opens with, "Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can't get out of it on your own." This is important because it suggests that whatever self-awareness one has about the heart's wounds from childhood, we instinctively search for those who can give us a hand out of that coffin-like despair. Friends, older siblings, fairy godmothers, and even long-dead authors whose works give us a view much larger and more abundant in scope than our own.
I have dozens of scraps of paper floating about at the moment. One says “It’s okay to live with good questions. You don’t always have to have answers,” a reminder from Professor Ed Langerak.
Another one is an early abbot quoted by Kathleen Norris in Dakota: “Why not become all flame?”
I like ’em!
I too had dozens of scraps — on coffee shop napkins, grocery receipts, bank deposit slips and any other bit of paper in my purse. I finally discovered these really keen and cheap ruled essay books from Ecosystem. They are about the size of a paperback, but slim — and now I carry one with me everywhere, writing down all the bits from whatever I am reading that I want to mull over…or words I think I might know but not really so as to use it comfortably. (Moleskin users may not like these — but I was always intimidated by moleskins’ expensive heft and glossy covers — never quite felt worthy enough of them!)
I read somewhere that John Crowley keeps these words above his desk:
INTENSITY – CLARITY – MOVEMENT
The quotes above my own writing desk change, but this one is *always* there:
“Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore.” — Tosca
And a few others that are there at the moment:
“Maybe being oneself is an acquired taste. For a writer it’s a big deal to bow–or kneel or get knocked down–to the fact that you are going to write your own books and not somebody else’s. Not even those books of the somebody else you thought it was your express business to spruce yourself up to be. “– Patricia Hampl (from The Writer on Her Work, Volume II)
“I love revisions…We can’t go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest.” — Katherine Ann Paterson
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. ”
— Twyla Tharp
I also love this Flannery O’Connor quote (which you, no doubt, told me about, being the biggest O’Conner fan I know): “Anybody who has survived childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.”
Two final quotes:
“From the time I arrived on the Cape, one of the things I chose explicitly was to put my writing first. Everything else in my life waxed and waned, but writing, I discovered during my restructuring, was my real core. Not any relationship. Not any love. Not any person. I had become more selfish and less accessible. I ceased to be the universal mommy of the tribe. I wanted to see people when I was done with my writing for the day, and not in the middle of my work time.”
— Marge Piercy (from Sleeping with Cats)
“I had no study in those days, not even a desk or file or bookcase to call mine alone….It might have happened sooner [the writing of work worthy of publication] had I had a room of my own and fewer children, but somehow I doubt it. For as I look back on what I have written, I can see that the very persons who took away my time and space are those who have given me something to say.” — Katherine Ann Paterson (from Gates of Excellence)
(As you can see by this selection, I’m having a little trouble getting the work/family balance right at the moment. . . as so many women writers do. . . .)
“I meant,” said Ipslore bitterly, “what is there in this world that truly makes living worth while?” Death thought about it “Cats,” he said eventually, “Cats are Nice.”
from “Sourcery” by Terry Pratchett
Cheers,
Mo Crow
What a wonderful, deep post. Loved it.
I have too many of my own to quote here, but one that is helping with my latest manuscript & is currently on my desktop:
“In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”
— Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Mo: The cat quote is hilarious — though I must confess I had just seen a t-shirt at the store that was both terrible and still managed to make me laugh: “I like cats. I just can’t eat one by myself.” Aaagh. But given that the speaker here is Death…I couldn’t help but connect the two!
Terri, These are awesome quotes — all inspiring and knowing. I love that feeling of recognition when you read a quote about writing that so deftly pulls into focus all the wobbly feelings one has about the business…whether it’s feeling anxious about having anything to say (and O’Connor has another lovely one for this:”Nothing you write will lack meaning because the meaning is in you”), to balancing family and writing (and that amazing realization that for all the time they take away they give back in experience which gives to the writing). Thanks again for these quotes. Like good friends who keep you on the path you were meant to travel, I never get tired of seeing them.
I LOVE Clarissa! Her work is fabulous. Years ago she was a regular on the Sur La Lune discussion board and rocked our world with these wonderful, poetic, insightful posts. Everytime I read her I get goosebumps. Thanks for bringing her to the party!
Marilyn Monroe – oddly enough:
“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
i have gone through most of the texts and listen couple of good peace of music..i am not good in writing English but lot i can understand
i simply say few words and that is,
i thank you your concern to the creation of humankind
i do not think who does not love this…hard work…and deep concern
And
finally, we must catch aesthetic changes in creation of performing art in natural and native from.
for me ….performing art is (including fiction) dreams of human, which we want to see in reality.
thank you for all you did and for all you will do in future…
Thank you too for your thoughts posted here.