Love Paper.
A tree gave its life for what you are about to attempt.
Don’t let the silicon chip or computer monitor cause you to forget this. That
ex-tree material stacked in your printer is so dead as you begin to write that
its bark-skinned, earth-eating, oxygen-producing, bird-supporting,
squirrel-housing body has been reduced to an inert blank expanse of white. To
find the life of language and lay that life down on the paper is to redeem the
sacrificed life of the tree.
In order to do this, we must see paper as clearly as Inuits
see snow. Our language is the second greatest living proof (actions being the
greatest) of what we do and do not see. Listen to how Inuit people see: apun (snow); apingaut (first
snowfall); aput (spread-out snow); ayak (snow on clothes); kannik (snowflake); nutagak (powder
snow); aniu (flat, hard-packed snow); aniuvak (packed
snowbank); natigvik (snowdrift); kimaugruk(snowdrift that blocks
something); perksertok (drifting snow); akelrorak (newly
drifted snow); mavsa (snowdrift overhead, about to fall); kaiyuglak (the
rippled surface of snow);pukak (sugar-like snow); pokaktok (salt-like
snow); misulik (sleet); massak (snow mixed with water); auksalak (melting
snow); aniuk (snow for melting into water); akillukkak (soft
snow); milik (very soft snow); mitailak (soft snow that
covers an opening in an ice flow);sillik (old hard crusty snow); kiksrukak (glazed
snow in a thaw); mauya (snow that can be broken through); katiksunik (light
snow); katiksugnik (light snow that is deep for walking).
Love paper. Paper is writer’s snow (apun).
Paper is the blank white element we live upon: element that
receives and records our every step. The receptacle of our lives and nuances
deserves an Inuit depth of respect. I lack names for the many kinds of pages I
see here in my study, but looking through drawers, shelves, wastebasket,
manuscript boxes, I find: virgin paper, still in the ream. (Apingaut—first snowfall.)
I find paper at which I stare long, unable to write a
word. (aniuvak—packed snowbank.)
I find a scrap of paper upon which, in the middle of
the night, I write down an urgent message from the heart, but leave the
light off so as not to wake my wife, only to find in the morning that after the
words, “And when a prayer fails to...” my pen ran out of ink. (auksalak—melting
snow.)
I find paper at which I am staring when, between the
words, a door opens, and inside is an imaginary Room, and inside the Room are
People; I find paper on which I write what the People are doing in
the Room, and paper in which the People lure me clear into the Room,
addressing me now as one of their own. (mauya-- snow that can be broken
through.)
I find paper upon which, in the midst of an intimate
disclosure from an elegant Room Woman, a phone rings (my phone, not hers), and
then a neighbor stops by (my neighbor, not hers), and I am so long distracted
that when I return to the paper and Room Woman I begin to spill my own
thoughts, not hers, failing to notice that for hours I have not only cut her
off in mid-disclosure, stood her up, treated her terribly, I have lost the way
back to her wonderful Room. (kimaugruk—snowdrift that blocks something.)
I find paper on which I write so stupidly, aimlessly,
roomlessly and unimaginatively that at the end of the day I wad it up and
throw it across my study, then wad and throw a few blank sheets for good
measure. (mitailak—soft snow that covers an opening in an ice flow.)
I find blank sheets unwadded in shame, and spoken to
rather than written upon, paper I audibly promise that—during the hours and in
the place foresworn to the People of the Imaginary Room—I will spill only their
thoughts, not my own. (aniuk—snow for melting into water.)
I find paper at which I stare long and stupidly, unable
to write a word—paper that at day’s end leaves me filled with shame even
though, by not writing upon it, I have kept my solemn promise to the Room
People. (aniu—flat, hard-packed snow.)
I find the dismayingly small stack of computer-printed
pages on which I earlier wrote with self-effacing skill of the Room People, pages
I begin to idly edit, after the People once again refuse to appear. (sillik—old
hard crusty snow.)
I find, on these same computer-printed pages, a space
between two words—a space no wider than the head of an ant—yet as I trying to
smooth an awkward phrase in that space(kannik—snowflake), two tiny hands
rise up out of the paper, a new Room Person climbs into sight, and this Person
begins singing—to the glorious ruin of my earlier draft—the true and living
story hidden behind everything I had written and not written so far.
I find paper on which I have so faithfully written not
what I want but what is there to be told (be it ayak, nutagak,
or akillukkak) that when I read it again days later its doors still open,
the People in its Rooms still laugh/struggle/shout/hate/love/die, and a silent
voice hidden in the next sheet of white tells me as I touch it whether it is kiksrukak or auksulakwe
must watch for now.
Addenda:
A straight line in the right place can bring you to tears.
Frederick Sommer (as overheard by Emmet Gowin)
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a
cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain;
without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper.
The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the
sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper
inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we
combine the prefix ‘inter-’ with the verb ‘to be,’ we have a new verb,
inter-be.
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
David James Duncan
1 comment:
Oh this is splendid beyond measure. I am a writer who paints,(massak-snow mixed with water). I come from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where we don't have so many words for snow, but we recognize the variations and behave accordingly. Thus,wherever I live, I find myself yearning for that beautiful blank space what is more full of texture, detail, refraction, and infinite outcome than my poor pen/fingertips can ever capture. But, being thusly determined, I live in brave attempt. Thanks for this gorgeous post. xo Suzi
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