KEEPING QUIET

There are many kinds of quiet.

The awkward Did I really say that out loud? quiet.
The I don't know what to say next  because what you just said is so ridiculous quiet
The I am silenced by the beauty and magnificence I behold before me quiet.
The I am alone quiet.
The We are engrossed quiet.
The We are so close--so in tune that we can just be together without talking every minute quiet.

The  Everyone in the room is writing quiet.
And more...
There are many kinds of quiet.

 In The Quiet Book, Deborah Underwood  defines the many possible quiets we might experience as children (or still as adults) through out the day--from waking to going to bed at night.

First one awake quiet...Don't scare the robin quiet..Thinking of a good reason you were drawing on the wall quiet

Hide-and-seek quiet, Last one to be picked up from school quiet... Before the concert starts quiet .. Bedtime kiss quiet...

Sound asleep quiet

As I think about that  sound asleep quiet, I  am reminded of one of my all time favorite read-alouds, The Napping House by Audrey Wood.  The soft, soothing words that define a house "where everyone is sleeping"  read in a quiet voice rock us slowly and lull us.....

...And on that cat
there is a mouse,
a slumbering mouse
on a snoozing cat
on a dozing dog
on a dreaming child
on a snoring granny
in a cozy bed
in a napping house,
where everyone is sleeping

These words lull us...until the wakeful flea initiates a chain of events that is guaranteed to delight and amuse.

All those people and animals sleeping in the napping house reminds me of the scene Cynthia Rylant paints in The Relatives Came.  She beautifully captures the difference people make-- even the quiet of a whole house sleeping sounds different when the people sleeping there are new and different, yet close and familiar.

The relatives weren’t particular about beds, which was good since there weren’t any extras, so a few squeezed in with us, and the rest slept on the floor, some with their arms thrown over the closest person, or some with an arm across one person and a leg across another. It was different, going to sleep with all that new breathing in the house.

Sometimes the activity in which we are engaged requires our quiet participation.  In Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, another favorite read-aloud classic,  a young girl accompanies her father on a special walk through the moonlit woods to go owling.  After he hoots-- imitating the call of the Great Horned Owl  ... they wait in quiet anticipation for an echoing answer.

It was late one winter night, long past my bedtime, when Pa and I went owling.  There was no wind.  The trees stood still as giant statues.  And the moon was so bright the sky seemed to shine... 

... it was as quiet as a dream.  We walked on towards the woods, Pa and I.

...I never called out. If you go owling  you  have to be quiet, that's what Pa says.

 And finally, in his poem  Keeping Quiet, Pablo Neruda reminds us of the healing empowerment, the positive potential of quiet .  He invites us to a  collective quiet, a united and purposeful quiet in which might change the world.

...It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines;we would all be together in a sudden strangeness....
...perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death...

You may read the entire poem,  Keeping Quiet here
You will find more poetry by Pablo Neruda here.

The next time you are quiet--- listen and name that quiet.
In the next quiet place--listen and define that quiet.
Shhhh........

You may want to read my related post Silences.

 Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

There are many kinds of quiet.  Make a list of as many kinds as you can remember and imagine.
Create a poem using some or all of the items on your list.

Remember an activity in which you needed to be quiet.    Write a personal narrative about that time.

How does quiet empower/heal/change us?   Write a poem or essay to explain.

Writing in the Context of Our Lives

Where do we find ideas?

I can still hear some of my students moaning I don’t know what to write.

Many teachers have told me they don’t have anything to write.

You may also feel that you do not have any writing ideas.

The truth is we do not write in a vacuum--writing comes from somewhere. And in reality, I have never met a person, young or old, who did not have something to write about, a story to tell, wisdom to share, and ideas to explore.

So where do we find writing?

 In my experience with both students and teachers, I have found all writing ideas arise from four sources: content, context, containers and container linings.  These elements are not linear; they do not occur in a step-one-step-two sequence. Our ideas may arise from one, all, or any combination of these four foundational starting places and lead us to deeper writing.

In the next several posts, I will explore each of these starting places.  Today we will consider context.

Context as a Source of Writing Ideas

Something makes us want to write--- we may not know what we want to write and what meaning we want to construct, but we know in certain situations and circumstances that we have to write. It may be a conversation in which we have participated or overheard, a book we have read, or the juxtaposition of several texts, or a piece of music, or art or a relationship, place, event or experience.  From all of these and other contexts, we may be surprised by the desire or intense impulse to write.

Death as a Context

In the context of deaths of close family members, three of my favorite poets were moved to write.  All of them chose to  write poetry. 

Nikki Giovanni shared at an OCTELA presentation several years ago how she wrote each day  while sitting at the bedside of her dying mother. The result was Acolytes.

Jane Yolen wrote The Radiation Sonnets while her husband was undergoing treatment for cancer and then a year after his death she wrote Things to Say to a Dead Man.

                           

Mary Oliver’s partner of 40 years died; she wrote Thirst.      

The meanings they each made were diverse, the emotions varied, and the purposes of the  writing individual, yet universal.  But the writing all arose out of the context of death.

Darkness as Context

Twice I have been in power outages that immediately plunged my companions and me into total darkness- no stars, no neon, no far off lights from a neighboring home, distant city or nearby island. Once in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands while on vacation and once again at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio on a CAWP retreat this happened. 

Out of this context, I wrote several pieces, all making various meanings, and focusing on several points, but arising from the same source.   I immediately wrote a had-to-be-there poem to share with the group at Kenyon that next morning, then a narrative written in front of my students as a model, and finally much later, a quick write lesson to include in my book.

The context, the unrelenting velvet black surrounding me, compelled me to write, to make sense of our collective fear of the dark. What is the history of this fear? What did our ancient  mothers and fathers think and do when plunged into this same darkness? 

Each piece I wrote made a distinct meaning and was presented in a different container, but each arose out of the context of darkness.

Today’s Deeper Writing Possibilities

 In what contexts have you felt compelled to write?

What have you recently read, seen, experienced, attended, or observed that made you feel you just had to write something?  How did that feeling manifest itself? 

When else have you had that same feeling?

You may want to list as many of these times as you can and then focus on one to explore in writing.