Where's wisdom coming from?

The heater pushes air in blasts that feel like opening the oven door when it is set at about 400 degrees. Open it and that blast feels so good in a cold house. Close the door and the blast is over. A second later you’re just as cold as you started out to be. That’s my heater. It turns on and off. It’s called (quite cleverly) a Fahrenheat. I hear that they’ve invented new heaters and new names for them. They are quiet. They say the heat is even. Some look like little radiators and are on wheels. I may ask for one for Christmas.

The cumulative effect of the Fahrenheat is a warm room, though. I can’t deny it. And I like the blast of heat.

My other heater is not so cleverly named. Tall and black, it sits out in the cabin. I’ll turn it on before I leave for work. It’s supposed to be warmer today than yesterday. Yesterday it got in the high fifties. I was driving my client on a spate of errands when I noticed this. His car has a dashboard that makes that announcement – like the black heater in the cabin. I don’t know why this isn’t welcome news.

A box at the side of my computer says that it’s 57 degrees and partly cloudy. I do not believe it. Is this the average from yesterday? The notice sits below an ever-changing box that has pictures in it. A grassy hill, the tail of a whale. Below it, there’s this record of what I did 20, 21, and 22 hours ago on the internet. Below that there is a “To Do” box that I can enter things into and above the whole line-up a place where I can type notes that looks like a little notebook. I don’t know how it got there or how to get rid of it.

I do appreciate the read-out of the time. It’s 6:04 and the sky has just lightened enough that I can see my trees against it.

As evidence that the room has warmed up to an acceptable temperature, the little white Fahrenheat is quiet. When it is on, it churns and chugs. It rattles. The heating coils glow orange.

I dream about the new and cling to the familiar. Makes you wonder where the new comes from.

Read about some research the other day. It was about jam. How would the sales of jam differ if you had six choices or two dozen. I was gratified to know that far more people bought jam when there were only six choices. As soon as six grew to twenty four, the choice was overwhelming.

Read about Minnesota writer and poet Bill Holm the other day too. He died what is called “an untimely death” over the winter, and was about to be celebrated.

Milkweed Editions publisher Daniel Slager said, Bill thought the “best of literature was for anyone who could read.”

“I think of that as something fundamentally Minnesotan, democratic with a small ‘d,’ this understanding of people. It’s a very decent, humane legacy…”

“Holm never had a television set or computer in his home, and Slager thinks that “wirelessness” gave depth to Holm’s writing. “Bill was really hostile to wiring. That’s all over his work. There’s a fine line between being misanthropic and being critically intelligent. More often than not, Bill was on the right side of that line.

“That’s where his wisdom was, coming from a long tradition that goes back to Thoreau, Emerson, Thomas Paine, Whitman, wonderful artists with language but profoundly critical of mainstream thinking and values. To me, it feels like Bill might be the last of the line.”

Where’s wisdom coming from?

A bright light blinks behind the trees. I watch it several minutes to determine if it is a plane or a star. Determining star, I smile. The sky is a light slate blue above and a coral wash below.

Quotes on Bill Holm from ‘Chain’ Reaction, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Mary Anne Grossmann, 11/1/09, 6E.

May I Never Solicit

A few years ago, I attended one of the most classy (in a good way) events I’ve ever attended. By classy, I think I mean generous, gracious, hospitable, and also deeply touching. I’m certain it was free since it’s been so long since I’ve paid for events, but I bought a few books that night. It was not only classy but a first-class, five-star event, (sorry for all the clichés), I just mean to say it was one of those events where you can’t believe afterwards, that you were lucky enough to be there. It was called Poets for Peace and it celebrated a publication by a fine small nonprofit publisher, Milkweed Editions, and if I recall correctly was co-sponsored by Grey Wolf Press, another fine Minnesota press that happened to be housed down a few doors from our coffee shop. Kim Stafford was the host and the new book was “Every War Has Two Losers” by his dad, William Stafford, who has since become my favorite poet. I have extensive notes on the evening somewhere, but the memory of it will suffice for now.

I went alone. The affect may have had something to do with my attentativeness and the way each small part of the evening felt as it seeped into me.

There are about 65 things that come to mind that I could write passionately about off the memory too. Now that’s a good event. Senator Eugene McCarthy was there, and the soft voiced poet Wang Ping, and Mel Duncan.

But here’s how I got to thinking of it. I got an email from Nonviolent Peaceforce that said on its subject line: Honor Mel Duncan and David Hartsough. Without my notes I can’t say for certain if he read poetry or, if he did if it was his own. But honoring him…hell…I’d honor anybody who’d been at that event.

The e-mail’s opening paragraph read as follows:
I come to you with a unique and exciting opportunity to honor two visionaries of
peace while expressing your own commitment to their dream.
A decade has passed since David Hartsough and Mel Duncan forged the partnership
that gave rise to Nonviolent Peaceforce. Their steadfast support of the cause of
unarmed civilian peacekeeping created what has been called "one of the most visionary
and realistic alternatives to war in the world today.”

What flashes through my mind is, “Okay, he’s retiring, they’re going to have an event,” and that’s what pulls forth all the memories of the Poets for Peace. Then I find out it’s a solicitation.

I don’t mean to be unfair. I can imagine just about anybody stepping down from a cause dear to their heart saying “Skip the hoopla,” and even “Send money” instead. They’d rather you support their cause than honor them. I get it. But drats if it wasn’t a disappointing buildup and double-drats that they’re missing the opportunity to feed the souls of peace loving sorts. A really good event can inspire you to action you’ve never taken before and still be having effects years down the road.

There’s something that happens when you get people of good heart together, when you get peacemakers together, and you’re not soliciting anything but the feeling of togetherness and passion and compassion. The book-selling in the hallway comes like a gift afterwards. You can’t wait to read that poetry, know more of what’s in the hearts of these people, and you somehow know that their book is going to give it to you.

Of course, I’m thinking of all this too because of having a book coming out. It’s hard to imagine creating an event that does what that one did. But what you hope for is that what’s in your heart speaks to another person and that what you do might feel generous…and that it will never be an act of solicitation.