Still Sundays

A man who chants God. ‘Human desire for a response.’ The voices in your head. Creative Potager. You are the poet.

October 3rd.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

New York City was so very still this morning that I cocooned in a silken sleep longer than usual.  Undisturbed by dreams, but never words.  Like one’s children, I can always feel them near and can’t help but keep an eye out.  It is now later than when I usually begin writing, yet a swan-floating silence prevails. Maybe because the wind is chillier and it is indeed cooler.

There is a man who walks up and down 96th and 106th streets on the Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan chanting “God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God.” He often wears blue suits, a hat, and carries a Bible. He is handsomely groomed, light in weight, brown skin, and has haunting eyes. He is not handing out pamphlets, nor is he begging for change. He simply chants. He is not that loud but the repetitive nature of the sound ‘God’ is a gong against your flow of thoughts.

When I used to live in that neighborhood many years ago, I was struggling with teaching full time, my Master’s coursework, and my senses were adjusting to being transplanted in New York City, I was convinced I could suffocate his vocal chords. The noise was unbearable.  I could hear him downstairs all the way from my 8th floor apartment in a high rise building. I could hear him when I got out of the subway on 96th Street. I could hear him while eating outside at a restaurant on 103rd Street.

Even after I moved from that neighborhood, every once in awhile when I ended up in that area, I would still run into him chanting, “God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God.” It bothered me less, given much time had passed, and not only did I not live in that area but the disturbance had been within and not because of his chanting.

I haven’t heard him or seen him in some time. I don’t live too far from that neighborhood now but New York City neighborhoods have a way of enveloping you and one rarely wanders outside their 10 block radius. I only do because of the location of my yoga studio; it is not near me.

I was in my old neighborhood on Friday. I walked around for a little bit. I saw my old building, my old grocery store, I noticed new buildings, new stores. I realized I was looking for him. I didn’t see him. I considered my inexplicable yet quite obviously overwhelming desire to speak to him. I have no idea what I wanted to ask or say. And for all I know he is crazy, but all who know what they are talking about appear crazy.

The New Yorker is one of my favorite magazines. I don’t enjoy their fiction much though. This was true even prior to working on my own writing project, Her Sizwe, and writing the stories I share on Tuesdays. My standard for what sustains my imagination and intelligence is directly proportional to my own creative output. Is that conceited? Ah well, I get one pass. I am growing, I can’t wear what doesn’t fit.

The October 4, 2010 New Yorker issue was particularly excellent. I hardly read every article but this issue I just might have. A sentence by David Denby in his article “Influencing People: David Fincher and ‘The Social Network'” has been prickling my brain. He addresses the phenomenon of Facebook and the paradoxical reality of the young man who created it. He writes, “He’s a revolutionary because he broods on his personal grievances and, as insensitive as he is, reaches the aggrieved element in everyone, the human desire for response.”

The human desire for response.

On Twitter most admit they will not follow people unless followed back.

The human desire for response.

We don’t want to just be heard but we want someone who responds.

This is not just reflective of social media but our very current state of reality.

The irony is no one can respond to us in a manner that only we can to ourselves. But how to sit with what one hears…

Twitter and Facebook will have to evolve and are already: the human desire for response can’t be met by ‘following’ but ‘being.’

I am asked many unexpected questions now. Perhaps that is true for anyone who subjects their thoughts publicly—published as a famed author or merely online.  I am just new to this trial.

“This voice” or “your voice”—is the framing of most questions.

I am fairly transparent about my process so I am not being evasive; I don’t know what “distinct voice” means so I don’t know how to answer where I get my voice.

A safe harbor where I play is Terrill Welch’s Creative Potager. She is a breathtakingly amazing artist, a fantastic photographer, and sprinkles vitamins for creativity. She shares Sprout Questions where “imagination rules” so we are “inspired.”  On Wednesday she posted some amazing photographs and the weekly Sprout Question: “Whose voice shows up in your creative work?” I answered as a comment on her post but was overwhelmed by that question because, as aforementioned, I have been getting this question frequently.

I am at the mercy of much that is not in my control: serendipitous encounters and finds, a symphony orchestrated by the Universe which is audible but I can’t make out the entire song, choreographing these words, stories, Her Sizwe out of me. I don’t have an answer. I am not doing this alone. There are others—many others—who quite consciously are assisting me.

He who stands on tiptoe
doesn’t stand firm.
He who rushes ahead
doesn’t go far.
He who tries to shine
dims his own light….
If you want to accord with the Tao,
just do your job, then let go.

~Lao Tsu

I really just “do my job” then “let go.” While another is sharpening their arrows to shoot precisely the right questions over what I have written, I have long moved on. This is not to say I am not delighted to know my stories or personal thoughts are read. I am happy to know anyone reads anything that makes them stop and consider. I am grateful to be part of that collective force, as many before me, and I pray many after me.

Whose voice?

Iqbal wrote,

“The Universe is nothing but a great symbol. But she never takes the trouble to interpret these symbols for us. It is the duty of the poet to interpret them and to revel their meaning to humanity.”

I am not the poet.

You are.

~a.q.s.

The safe harbor where I play and hopefully you will join: Terrill Welch’s Creative Potager. Check out Terrill’s amazing photographs and paintings as well. The space is drenched with creative magic.

For those who regularly read Still Sundays, today’s post would not have been possible without Linda Hollier. I really could not have written today for multiple reasons. She directed me to The Tao of Twitter and this piece by her: Filtering.

Immense gratitude for the presence of both these women for my creative process.

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