"Searching for depth"

[vaneramos]

As part of my self-directed nature writing course I was supposed to choose several distinctly different essays and copy them out word for word. Before the 19th Century that was how students learned to write. They would collect their copied writings into longbooks. When I mused to my Writers' Circle about whether I should type or write longhand, Ashley and Carla both insisted longhand is better.

It was amusing to find myself on the other side of that fence. Natalie Goldberg's advice persuaded me to start writing longhand some years ago, and I became a staunch proponent of the practice. After acquiring a new laptop three years ago, I quickly reverted to keyboarding everything. It is so convenient! Unquestionably, handwriting taps into the mind differently. I want to explore that again, so I'm taking the women's advice.

For starters I chose the Barry Lopez essay that left a strong impression on me some years ago, "Searching for Depth in Bonaire". It is slow going and my hand is unaccostomed to this kind of pressure. After four writing sessions I have only worked through four of seventeen pages. Will I complete it?

I hope so. It is a grounding, meditative practice. I admire Lopez's way with language, and this forces me to engage with it more analytically. It plants phrases in my memory.

...a lake on the northwest coast where at dusk flamingos rise up in a billowing sheet of pink, flecked with carmine and black, and roll off south across the Bonaire Basin for the coast of Venezuela, sixty miles away.

That dependable evening Angelus of departing birds deepened the architecture of the sky, and it resolved, for a moment, the emotional strain of my brief, disjointed conversation with this landscape.

Now I am constantly on the lookout for skyward architecture. I allow myself the luxury of researching any thing or thread of an idea that intrigues me. I require myself to look up and comprehend every word whose meaning is not completely clear. Lopez is a writer who cherishes language. I fall in the same place, but language requires patient attention.

Another assignment I plan to begin soon is to write a journal that covers one season of the year. I'm considering buying a fresh notebook and doing this the old-fashioned way.

Comments

[waitsfortherain.livejournal.com]

The quality of your writing impresses me more and more each time I read a new post. I'm really glad for having added you.

Paper journals are irresistible, especially if you get the right notebook. There's something immensely charming about the sight of a page covered with someone's handwriting.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I purchased the journal yesterday. It's nothing fancy to look at but it's an Ecojot product made locally from recycled material, and "With your purchase of this product, we will donate a workbook to a child in need." It seemed right for this project.

[smileyfish.livejournal.com]

You are amazing and inspiring :)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it means a lot to me to inspire other people.

[inishglora.livejournal.com]

Leonard Shlain explored the effect of literacy and writing upon the brain, and concluded that our modern two-handed typing has re-wired the brain in a new way. He argued that the practice of writing, with one hand, re-wired the human brain in another manner generations earlier. It's a fascinating premise, if nothing else.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I read the blurb on that page with interest. I detect a problematic binary opposition between handwriting (evil?) and image-based creativity (good?). It would be difficult to support, considering the vast majority of people in Old Testament times were probably illiterate. Regardless of functional specialization of the brain, and regardless of my habits over the past several years, I find it easier to write fiction and poetry by hand than on a keyboard.

Although I rebut, the book looks fascinating, as you say.