Wanting more
Posted on | September 30, 2006 | 34 Comments
On Friday I took an airplane down to NJ to meet up with DH and the Bean who’d gone on ahead (the prospect of a 7 hour car ride with toddler suddenly overwhelming after a long week of six year olds.) The plane took off through a partial cloudcover just after sunset, and as we lifted above the ash and indigo clouds, the atmosphere above was smudged with vibrant orange, fading to pale yellow, and then to a hundred delicate shades of blue each growing darker as the vast distance of space increased.
Looking out the window, feeling the odd weight of my body pressing back into the seat, bucking gravity for liftoff, I was struck by how miraculous it is that as humans, we’ve grown used to this. To flying, miles above the earth. To this view above the clouds. Something about it still feels risky to me; I can’t help thinking of Icarus falling in flight away from the heat of the sun. It will always feel brave and terrifying to me, to lift off the ground inside a metal jet. To fly without wings, trusting aerodynamics to lift the weight of steel and small human life into the air.
I brought the newest Elle and Vanity Fair magazines to leaf through on the plane, and spent the flight skimmingt through the pages of models with smokey eyes and skinny jeans, to linger over the book reviews and essays. This happens to me sometimes. This sudden thirsting for stuff beyond the parentheses of my small world.
It’s a feeling that almost leaves me breathless. A craving. An intense realization that I am somehow parched for culture, for books, for time to delve into novels, read book reviews, attend theater, re-learn the myths of our culture, or wander through galleries. Without intention, my life grows narrow. I stop moving beyond the vocabulary of everyday. I stop pounding on the window that defines my view. And then, suddenly, like then on the plane, I run smack into my narrow vantage point.
All of the morning poems I’ve been writing this month have acted as a catalyst for this, I’m sure. They’ve stirred up something deep in me; made me reflect on the gaps I have in my ability to construct metaphors that matter, or to encapsulate with precise langauge, a specific circumstance or emotion.
The thing is, I’m not sure how to get beyond where I’m at. I’m not sure how to pick up a rock and throw it into the window. Not sure even, what the window or rock look like any more. But if giving ten haphazard minutes poems every morning has changed me, I can gather the same courage to toss myself towards books again, towards learning.
So what I want from you is this: what writers, or poets, or artists or films have had a lasting impact on the way you think and live your life? Name five.
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I am Christina Rosalie
Hello. I'm so happy you've stopped by!
I am a multimedia storyteller, digital strategist, idea starter, stalker of wonder, finder of four leaf clovers, MFA graduate student, and mama of boys. My first book,
will be published by SKIRT! Books in September, 2012.
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September 30th, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
I feel the same after writing 13 poems this month. Again thsnk you for the challenge.
Here are my 5:
1. Wally Lamb’s book I Know This Much Is True
2. Poet Joy Harjo
3. Poet Audre Lorde
4. Poet Lucille Clifton
5. Poety of Rumi
September 30th, 2006 @ 5:05 pm
Mary Oliver
Rickie Lee Jones
Christina Rosalie
Annie Dillard
Bill Watterson
September 30th, 2006 @ 8:59 pm
I can’t express, even though I keep typing it and saying it, over and over to anyone who will listen – how much these poems have given me. How I feel so FULL of life, how it’s like I’ve got a new set of eyes. My heart is overflowing. Thank you for this extraordinary gift, for opening the door and inviting us in.
But I know what you mean about the new metaphors. I hear you!
My list:
Madeleine L’Engle
Anne Lamott
Over the Rhine (musicians)
Tori Amos
W.S. Merwin
And Barbara Kingsolver – oh! can’t forget her!
September 30th, 2006 @ 9:41 pm
Joni Mitchell
Anne Lamott
Eckhart Tolle
The film A Room with a View
The HBO series Six Feet Under
September 30th, 2006 @ 9:42 pm
Oh, and I have been going through this same thing lately – needing more.
September 30th, 2006 @ 11:23 pm
This is tough, but I will say:
Singer Eva Cassidy
Rocky Mountain High by John Denver
My Only Story by Monica Wood
All Over But the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
American Beauty
October 1st, 2006 @ 2:13 am
1. “West Wing”
2. A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
3. Marc Cohn
4. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
5. “Good Will Hunting”
6. “The Object of My Affection”
October 1st, 2006 @ 3:32 am
Thomas Merton
May Sarton
the Psalms
The Weepies music
All the blogs I read…
October 1st, 2006 @ 3:32 am
P.S. I feel the same about flying… It is a source of amazement and fear, all at the same time…
October 1st, 2006 @ 8:01 am
leonard cohen
timothy findley
margaret atwood
lucy maud montgomery
anne marie macdonald
the odd thing about this list
is that they are all canadian…
which i did not plan when i
picked them to read
and i did not plan when i wrote this
list…funny.
October 1st, 2006 @ 8:38 am
The movie Baraka.
Seriously, if you can find it, you need to see it- it is a beautiful and amazing non verbal film. I think you’d really appreciate it. If you are interested you can read about it here:
http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/baraka.aspx
October 1st, 2006 @ 9:59 am
You mean those things that get a visceral response?…that tug at the familiar that you didn’t even know resided in you?
Films: “Wings of Desire”…”Thelma and Louise”
Authors: Natalie Goldberg, Barbara Kingsolver
Musicians: Bonnie Hayes, Tru, Shawn Colvin, Rickie Lee Jones, Tori Amos and always Prince
Hairstyle: Lucinda Williams
Poet: Don’t have a favorite because I seldom read it. But years ago I fell in love with Natalie Goldberg’s ‘poetry booth’ idea…writing quick poems and giving them away. Much like your challenge.
P.S. This was a beautiful post summing up so perfectly a universal feeling that can feel so achingly personal. xoxo
October 1st, 2006 @ 10:22 am
Tori Amos
Ani DiFranco
‘The God of Small Things’ (novel)
W.H. Auden
Adrienne Rich
October 1st, 2006 @ 10:25 am
the scriptures
george elliot
jane austen
virgil
minerva teichert (artist)
October 1st, 2006 @ 11:18 am
The Alchemist
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
KT Tunstall’s latest CD
October 1st, 2006 @ 11:26 am
Mary Miss (sculptor)
Anish Kapoor (sculptor)
May Sarton
ts elliot
thomas merton
October 1st, 2006 @ 3:43 pm
Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert
The End of Mr Y– Scarlett Thomas
Teesha Moore – http://www.teeshamoore.com
Anahata Katkin – http://www.anahata.typepad.com
http://www.spherisgallery.com
Catherine Farish – Canadian artist
October 2nd, 2006 @ 10:48 am
Visual:
1. the sea inside (spanish film)
2. children of heaven (iranian film)
3. veronica decides to die (paul cohelo)
4. the infinite self (stuart wilde)
5. sally mann photography
Sound
1. allison kraus
2. nanci griffith
3. shawn colvin
4. annie lennox
5. dolly parton
i am in love with this post of yours. thanks for stirring me from my pregnant slumber. xoxoxo
October 2nd, 2006 @ 12:14 pm
“lasting impact on the way you think and live your life” and the way I write:
C.S. Lewis
Charles Dickens
On Writing Well by William K. Zinsser
Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.
The Scriptures
October 2nd, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
Oops-
The Elements of Style by W. Strunk AND E. B. White
October 2nd, 2006 @ 12:51 pm
I’ll try to keep it short but I love the question…
Here are three books that have impacted the way I live my life…
“Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD.
Synopsis: Folklore, fairy tales and dream symbols are called on to help restore women’s neglected intuitive and instinctive abilities in this earthy first book by a Jungian analyst. According to Estes, wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and devotion to mate and community. This comparison defines the archetype of the Wild Woman, a female in touch with her primitive side and able to rely on gut feelings to make choices. The tales here, from various cultures, are not necessarily about wolves; instead, they illuminate fresh perspectives on relationships, self-image, et al…
“Windows of the Soul” by Ken Gire. Synopsis: Within our hearts is a longing–a profound cry of the soul for something our theologies can only point us to, never replace. Intimacy with God. Something that has no human or earthly substitute. Yet, if we pause to listen, we will discover how often God speaks to us through human and earthly means. He stands at the windows of the easily overlooked and the unlikely, tapping at the pane. He beckons us to places of encounter where we learn how well he understands the language of our hearts.
“When the Heart Waits” by Sue Monk Kidd. Synopsis: Inspirational autobiographical account of personal pain, spiritual awakening, and divine grace.
And through every season of life…The Psalms.
One movie worth watching – several times – “Children of a Lessor God”. William Hurt and Marliee Matlin. Mark Medoff’s tough play about deafness is sweetened and softened in this 1986 film adaptation directed by Randa Haines (Wrestling Ernest Hemingway). Synopsis: William Hurt plays a teacher newly hired at a school for deaf children, and Marlee Matlin is the deaf and withdrawn janitor who captures his attention. Romantic and heartfelt, the film makes its audience care very much about its two leading characters, and wince when Hurt’s well-meaning instructor allows Matlin’s handicap to become a problem. Haines develops some interesting visual ideas to underscore the isolation of Matlin’s world…
Powerful exchanges between the two primary characters! This movie profoundly impacted the way I look at bridging different worlds, whether due to disability, culture, choices, et al.
And lasting, “When a Man Loves a Woman” with Meg Ryan and Andy Garcia. It’s real, gripping, and offers a profound look at lives that intersect at all the wrong places and what it takes to make them right… Synopsis: An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter’s safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.
And a poet – David Whyte. Especially “The House of Belonging”, “Clear Mind, Wild Heart” and “Everything is Waiting for You.”
One of my favorite poems is by Naomi Nye:
The river is famous to the fish.
The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.
The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.
I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.
Sorry this was soooo long! But as always your blog takes me to places inside my soul that are rich…and I’m grateful.
October 2nd, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
Maya Angelou
Frida Kahlo
Gloria Steinem
Marianne Williamson
Sharon Olds
Mists of Avalon
Robert Rauschenberg
Dan Eldon
Madonna
The list is a bit longer, but I think this is a good start!
October 2nd, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
1.Anne Morrow Lindbergh – “Gifts From the Sea”
2.Billy Collins – any of his poetry
3.The Indigo Girls
4.Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner – favorite movie
5.Auntie Mame – with Rosalind Russell of course
October 2nd, 2006 @ 8:12 pm
Writers:
1) Frances Mayes
2) Bryce Courtney (The Power of One)
3) Elizabeth Gilbert
4) Dana Markova
5) Julia Cameron
6) Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
7) E.B. White
Poets:
1) Rumi
2) Shel Silverstein
Artists:
1) Rembrandt
2) Diane Rath (friend of mine — amazing artist who taught me how to really “see”)
3) Heidi Tincknell (another friend and amazing artist)
October 2nd, 2006 @ 9:53 pm
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October 3rd, 2006 @ 2:50 pm
Shel Silverstein – poet…my first introduction to poetry
Milan Kundera – author
Nina Simone – pianist/singer/songwriter
Say Anything – movie
Noel Streatfield – author of the Shoes books
October 3rd, 2006 @ 4:49 pm
the color purple
mary oliver
johnny depp
chocolat
bruce springsteen
October 3rd, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
(Wonderful post)
Your Life is Your Message by Eknath Easwaren
Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsh
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robinson and Joe Dominguez
Many poems by Emily Dickinson
The Howl by Allen Ginsburg
October 3rd, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
beautiful, as usual – and look at all your responses!
my list:
annie dillard – for the time being
my college professor & mentor, tom
over the rhine
glenn gould, especially the brahms intermezzos
krzysztof kieslowski, especially bleu and rouge
October 4th, 2006 @ 4:48 am
Only five?
Barbara Kingsolver – The Bean Trees/Animal Dreams
Bailey White – When Mama Makes Up Her Mind/Sleeping at the Starlight Motel
Tom Robbins, Skinny Legs and All/Jazz Perfume
SARK – Inspiration Sandwich
Nick Bantock – Griffin and Sabine
Oh! I have to add Ray Bradbury even though it puts me over five; he was the first author I ever heard speak, in high school. Seeing and hearing him, suddenly brought home that authors were real human beings no matter if their imaginations and reputations were bigger than life. Wonderful author and man.
October 4th, 2006 @ 6:20 am
OK. If I can name five of them, but not try to identify THE five. There are so many, but today, the ones who come to mind, what moved my soul, lifted me?
—- Poetry of Seamus Heaney – hearing him read,
—– Van Gogh – his work, his life, his words
—— Carl Sagan’s novel Contact (and the movie with Jodie Foster)
—— Julia Cameron – The Artist’s Way changed my life, more than once.
—– meeting any artist dedicated to their work, taking their work seriously, willing to claim the title Artist, inspires me hugely.
October 5th, 2006 @ 11:39 am
This is a great post, i’m so glad to have found your blog… the five artists who have had an impact on my life (particularly my creative life) are: Jeanette Winterson, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, Hanif Kureishi and Erica Jong
Sx
October 6th, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
I love your blog. Thanks so much for keeping a sleepy college student awake at work!
1. The Mozart Season by Virginia Euwer Wolffe (I know it’s a children’s book, but wisdom must be born from simplicity, right?)
2. The Wasteland by T.S. Elliot
3. the Bible, primarily Hosea, Psalms and Isaiah.
4. C.S. Lewis
5. See the film “Osama” if you haven’t already. It’s heartbreaking..but worth it.
6. Write (journal, poetry whatever.) immediately after you read something, even if you hated it. See what happens… it was very interesting for me…
October 6th, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
Oooh so sorry I forgot you MUST listen to Berlioz!!!