THE CITY OUR WRITING TEACHER—Fidelity/Place of Refuge
Jacob Lawrence, This Is Harlem, 1943
By Mary Rakow
There’s a reason why writers, composers, architects and mathematicians wander a lot. When creative people are “in the zone” and we get out, we stop thinking directly about our project. And that’s when we see our teachers everywhere! Bar, beauty parlor, church.
This happens because workshops, editors, conferences are all wonderful resources for us. But the primary resource for every creative person is his or her absolutely unique perception of the world. When we wander, we react. When we react, we find that unique perception that is ours alone. And when we pay attention to our perceptions across time and experience, we eventually discover within ourselves, our own particular sense of the greatest possible good.
As we work, we become more conscious of what this concept of the good is.
Once we can name what appears to us to be that greatest good, we can begin to disciple ourselves to it, to shape our lives around it, whether it be care for the planet, racial equality, gender justice, an area of mathematics, ballet as a dance form.
I have edited many manuscripts. There has not been one that does not bear witness, in one way or another, to the author’s notion of the good. Not one. It’s not usually articulated in the work explicitly. But it holds the work. And if, as an editor, I can offer my sense of that good which seems to hold the whole story, the author, if I’m right, can begin to shape the story more beautifully in service of that good.
I’m waiting for the sun to come up. But it’s the end of October, which excites me because this time of year the fog in this part of the city lifts during the night and I can see the constellation Orion. It’s gorgeous. Majestic and noble. The sheer scale of it reminds me of my smallness. Yet, I have a place. I am viewing it.
I watch Orion slowly move across the sky, from the top left corner of my dark window to the lower right. Or, more correctly, I witness the effect of the rotation of our Earth on its axis, which makes it look like Orion is moving. But Orion is not moving and I am. This in turn reminds me of the bigger thought, the greater good I am seeking, which is my deep hunger for what is unchanging. Hunger for what lies behind all change.
This is my largest question. The greatest good I can imagine. And it leads to this question: Is the universe intentional? Or in the words of the brilliant writer, Marilynne Robinson, Is the universe addressed to us?
Last night I watched a short video of two of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s legendary solos. Comparisons were made by showing clips of lesser ballet dancers performing the same two solos. His innovation was obvious, astonishing and powerful. And I liked thinking about the question of Baryshnikov’s contribution to ballet as a form. I wondered about what motivated the man who made the video. He showed me a good, but not, for my sense of things, the highest good of all the goods I can imagine. His question and my questions are different. Baryshnikov’s contribution to ballet is not the question to which I want my work as a writer to bear witness, although I love the video.
We all are juggling many goods. Partners, family, career, health, etc. And we have little time to write. But within that territory of time that belongs to us alone, I think it’s wise to keep our focus on the greatest good we can imagine. We don’t have to write directly about it. Usually we won’t. But to let it guide us. To be faithful to it. If we do, our work will add to the diversity of the world, to the density and good weight of the world, to the beauty of it.
I am preparing to fly for the first time since Covid. To celebrate 50 years of my friend’s service to formerly incarcerated men and women of Los Angeles. From the start, he’d say “I’m not interested in ‘success.’ I’m interested in ‘fidelity.’” Fidelity to a few very simple but radical ideas around which he has discipled himself from the start. “We belong to each other, no exceptions.” And, “There is no ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Only ‘Us’.” And “A person is always worth more than the worst thing they have ever done.” And “Each person is unshakably good. Whether they have discovered that about themselves yet or not.” He has made the word “kinship” famous.
In videos of him 10, 20, and 30 years ago, his words are always the same. He has never changed his notion of the highest good. Starting off riding his bike around two housing projects in which the highest concentration of gang violence in the US was happening. Visiting gang members in the hospital, the camps, prisons. Just thinking and acting and saying the same thing.
As he jokes, “If success comes, I’ll take it!” but it’s not a good he pursues. Now Homeboy Industries is the largest rehab, recovery, and re-entry program in the world. And nothing’s changed but the numbers. 10,000 men and women walk through the doors on Bruno Street every year. Anger management, parenting classes, GED prep, job placement, tattoo removal are freely given. Social enterprises provide jobs. But underneath all of this, Homeboys is a place of healing. Of mutuality. Of kinship. And lots of laughter. There are a million youtube videos you can google. If you find yourself in LA, you can have a tour. It is another City of the Heart like we discussed in last month’s blog.
As writers we need a writerly City of the Heart. And we also need a place of refuge where we can count on being reminded of the highest good to which we are trying to aim our lives. Places that give us hope. We need to find such p laces and visit them regularly.
I love to write in art museum cafés. I chose my first apartment in SF because I could walk to SFMOMA. It reminded me of the things I cared most about then. The largest good I then was paying attention to.
But last year I moved to this part of the city to be able to see the church where I now worship. To feel like a satellite of it. Close, but separate. Always in view. Always present to me. It’s now a larger good to me than art, which I love! My primary question has changed.
The building is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., and I go there often, in between services, when it’s silent. I don’t write there. I just sit. I go when very little is going on. But so much is going on. A young man on his knees. A woman with her children. We are in parallel solitudes.
There is the aura of belief in the interior life. Each person silently saying, by posture and gesture, my interior life matters to me. Postures they wouldn’t assume in public. Postures of gratitude, regret, confusion. We stay as solitaries. It’s a safe place. My eyes are closed most of the time as well. And I am grounded again.
It’s central to my writing process. Not because I write there, but because it brings me back to the person I want to be when I do write. I’m brought back to an encounter with the greatest good as I now see it.
We all have some kind of vision of a highest good. We all need places of refuge that bring us back to our own startlingly unique vision of that highest good. Bar, beauty parlor, church. Places that help us stay faithful to it. So that we will make the work that we alone can make. That is our job. Our privilege. That is our gift to the world!
Exercises
- Where do I find refuge?
- What is my vision, these days, of the highest good?
- Where do I remember this vision?
- What are the guideposts that help me stay on track?
- Who helps me stay faithful to it?
- What obstacles get in my way?
- What small step can I take this month to step around this obstacle?
If you or a friend need an editor I’d love to hear from you! www.maryrakow.com
Thank you to those who comment here, always. And special thanks this month to those who so generously left Reviews on my new Google Maps Business Page! I’m super grateful!
Until next time!
Mary
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© Mary Rakow 2022
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A freelance editor living in the Bay Area, Mary Rakow, Ph.D. works with clients who are both local and global. She is both rigorous and encouraging, insightful and kind.
A theologian with graduate degrees from Harvard Divinity School and Boston College, Mary writes with deep feeling and a questioning faith. This Is Why I Came earned outstanding reviews in The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Commonweal, Christian Century, O Magazine, Ploughshares. It appeared on reading lists for courses at both Princeton and Yale.
Graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UC Riverside, inducted into Alpha Sigma Nu for her doctoral work, Rakow is a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellow. She received two Lannan residencies and two residencies at Whale & Star, in the studio of visual artist Enrique Martinez Celaya, where she wrote the first book-length treatment of his work, Martinez Celaya, Working Methods (2014).
Rakow’s debut novel, The Memory Room, received outstanding reviews and was shortlisted for the Stanford University International Saroyan Prize in Literature, a PEN USA/West Finalist in Fiction and was listed among the Best Books of the West by The Los Angeles Times.
Mary is a beloved editor and writing coach. She is constantly on the lookout for new writers, both those who are just starting out and those with publications and writing accolades.
Dr.Mary!
you inspire and ignite
how and
why we write
I had saved your post until I could sit with it, Mary. It’s important for me to ruminate…absorb your ideas and brew my thoughts. My place is sacred for me. Nature. I walk in the woods for grounding. It only counts on dirt. No asphalt paths for me. The wind in the trees and animals scurrying about their business remind me that I’m a small part of it all. The earth cushions my steps. I feel received and blessed. Encouraged to walk in my truth even if the world sometimes appears to push against it. Thank you for the reminder to absorb the sensations.
In appreciation,
Eme