Sensing Structure

Ox spent his childhood going to sleep to the sound of piano music of Rachmaninoff, Dvorak, and Brahms.  His mother practiced nightly just after he went to bed.  He absorbed music the easy way.  Now he listens to a new piece of music over and over to make sense of its structure.  I love this repetition and listen that way even when Ox is away; I don’t know enough about music to hear the structure of the work.

I had been a voracious and catholic reader for most of my youth.  In my middle years I read a mystery a night, until I got into the sloppy practice of reading the first few chapters and then the last to see if I’d identified the murderer.  I never thought much about the structure of fiction.  In high school literature classes much attention was paid to symbolism and not much to the structure of stories.  

We are learning to find the structure in short stories in my current fiction writing class.  This is hard for me to grasp.  But sometimes when I’m reading the next assignment a tingle of recognition tickles my neurons and I glimpse at least the ghost of the structure of the work. On the second and third reading, the searched-for structure usually becomes clearer. After all the fiction classes are finished, I'll have to look at Paris Review article authors to discover new (to me) and worthy fiction to read.  It will take discipline to keep looking for structure until I get the knack.

Structure in Painting is less mysterious to me. I know experientially that strong feeling can be conveyed to those who don’t know how to find structure; we don't need to understand it to resonate with a work.  I am beginning to understand, however,  that the joy in a work of art is greatly enhanced by understanding its structure.

O Wad Some Power the Giftie Not Gie Us

Generally I like being the age I am.  I haven’t yet felt the aches and pains of extreme old age and I hope when I do I just ignore them.  I feel more confident and competent than I have ever felt before.

This weekend we had a family party.  My brother had an I-pad with him to take pictures of the crowd.  The bad thing about this is that a) we saw no pictures of him from the picnic, and 2) we saw pictures of me from the picnic.

I go through life blissfully unaware of what the people in front of me see.  It’s the crepe-i-ness of age that creeps me out.  It doesn’t bother me at all in other people.  Most of my friends have a little crepe around them somewhere and they are still beautiful to me.  My own crepe distresses me so much because I see it so seldom.  Maybe I should wish for the giftie after all so that the crepe would lose it shock value.

Counting Crows and the Music of the Spheres

One day I must hear the band Counting Crows.  They named one of my favorite discoveries.

A few years ago when I walked from Hazel Street to the office, a solitary crow lurked at the bottom of St. Clair Avenue and cawed at me.  I used to caw back matching him caw for caw and often adding one; he always matched or added another caw.  As I walked uphill out of earshot, I’d throw in a rhythm change and the crow would usually match that. 

Yesterday I mowed the back and then front lawns at the Hazel Street studio, attacked some invading ivy and trumpet vine, and planted some herbs.  A crow was in the backyard when I started.  He cawed; I cawed back three for three.  He cawed five; I cawed five back.

Eventually I moved to the front lawn.  So did the crow.  He began to vary the game.  It was no longer just number and rhythm of caws.  He threw in words.  He began with “caw”.  He added “aeow” then “cee” I tried to match the crow word for word.  I hope he was proud of training me so well.

After returning home, after a shower, Ox and I went to Mint Springs to cool off.  He’d been doing forestry at the Crozet house as I had been gardening at Hazel Street.  We didn’t even walk around the pond; we only went to the middle of the dam and listened in the mist.  First the green frogs twanged their rubber bands.  Later two high pitches of spring peepers started in a steady song.  Red-winged blackbirds punctuated with calls a couple of times.  Just before we left we heard the bullfrogs start up.  They sat well apart from each other around the pond.

Just standing there for half an hour was as salutary as any meditation.

Downhill with Sammy

Our daughters take turns keeping tabs on us.  This is dear and quaint to me.  It helps me accept the fact that I am growing old.  We did something right with our children; they are compassionate people.

It was Catherine’s turn this time.  She arranged the traditional viewing of the Kentucky Derby at the Crozet house.  She brought her Yorkshire terrier, Sammy, along for the fun.

Sammy is an amiable dog.  We walked at a leisurely pace around the pond at Mint Springs before the race.  Sammy stopped every few inches to sniff some new scent.  When Cat and Matt first got Sam, he barely knew that he was a dog.  He did amazing tricks for treats but he didn’t know how to bark, not even at the postman.  Cat and Matt have trained him to be a real dog.  Halfway around the pond, Sammy surprised us by jumping in.  He looked surprised himself, but decided to wallow a while.  We let him.

At the far end of the pond, Sammy found a hill with a dead fish or some goose poo, something smelly anyway, on the ground halfway down.  He rolled over it while writhing on his back and sliding downhill.  When he reached the bottom he ran back up the hill and writhed and rolled downhill again.  He repeated this performance three or four time with apparent joy.

We rode home with a reeking and happy dog.  To me, though running horses are beautiful, everything after Sammy rolled was anticlimax. 

Catherine sent us the video she took with her phone of Sammy’s downhill slides.  I am saving it for some gray day when I need a belly laugh.  

Writing about Writing

I am learning how to write and it is a serious and joyful business to me.  I have never had a voice. I talk compulsively when I am self-conscious; what comes out is only natter.  I can only talk sensibly on paper with revision.

When I was a girl a favorite great uncle gave me a set of books by Arthur Quiller Couch, On The Art of Reading and On The Art of Writing.  After I married I dipped into Gowers, Fowler, and Strunk and White.  What they all said about clear, simple writing made good reading and good sense; I didn’t think I would ever be able to exercise the things they taught.

Even with the computer’s help clear writing is not easy for me.  I am taking a fiction writing course.  I don’t think I’ll be able to write the great American novel, the ability to imagine a story is not my gift, but with the help of this teacher, I may learn to write with the clarity that those fine writers about writing espoused.

I think this odd, late, pursuit of writing skill is part of a strong wish to make sense of my life. I am grateful that I have some time left to work on it.