In an interview shortly before his death, Barry Lopez described how Native elders like to sit facing a window, and, during conversation, breakoff to remark on what’s happening outside. He mirrors this tendency during the interview — “there are two female mergansers over there. See them?” — diverting and reestablishing the flow of conversation — “ah, here comes another one by itself, just flying up there” — as he reflects on the patterns which connect our lives.1
This was on my mind as I wrote this week’s dispatch. I’ve moved my office to the attic; the Warthog took my old study to make room for the Monkey in the nursery. And so, now, when I sit to write, I’m also looking out a window, looking at the pond and trees and trails and birds. I’ll be a few sentences into what I think is a good idea when a jay flicks across the window. I watch as it hops, pecks at a branch — grabbing an ant or a spider — then flies away. I glance back to my screen, and suddenly, that thought isn’t as compelling.
So, I start anew. But a cardinal is next, perched on a limb at eye level. We watch each other for ten breaths, an eternity. I start again, but then a hawk swoops — and how can I not watch it ascending and descending in the gyre. Is it hunting or playing? Is there a difference?
It goes like this for the morning, for days. Sometimes the big ideas you have are not the big ideas worth writing. Far better to hold them close for now, turning and honing them, until something far stronger is born, something worth revealing.
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
From Syntax of the River: The Pattern Which Connects, a conversation between Barry Lopez and Julia Martin.
"And so, now, when I sit to write, I’m also looking out a window, looking at the pond and trees and trails and birds."
Prediction: your output will decline and your well-being will soar! 🌱
(Of course you're following our friend EBW's practice of writing in a little shed with a lovely view! 👏)
I definitely have my fair share of big ideas that will likely never see the light of Substack. Like you said, some are best to hold close for awhile and see what they turn into.