A SERIOUS CONVERSATION WITH MYSELF--PART III

I have not forgotten my serious conversation with myself. Honest. But I have been distracted by a troublesome book review, one that did not come easy. Having requested a review copy and having read--and liked!--the book, I felt an obligation to get the review written. Once I get started on a review--the first words or sentence are usually enough to propel me through the rest--I stalled on the follow-up. My head felt muddled. The ideas came, but in no neat verbal package as they often do. Lacking focus, I wrote too much. Un-usefully, the adjectives and adverbs came pouring out, often a sign of having little of substance to say and using the decorative words as an excuse.

So... I finished a draft, and was not happy with it. I gave it to Ellie to read, as I often do; and did not believe her when she said that it was good. She knew I had been struggling and wanted to be kind. She did, though, add a little kicker about there being, just possibly, a bit too much retelling, a bit too much description. So yesterday I scrapped the whole thing and started over, this time with greater success. Not great, I told myself when I was through. But a whole lot better.

The experience left me wondering about the brain--whether what I'm observing is in fact a diminishing intellectual capacity. I have trouble, these days, finding that mot juste that Flaubert, ever the perfectionist, wrote about: exactly the right word. I find myself resorting a great deal to the easily accessed Thesaurus on my computer, reading through lists of (mostly) adjectives (!) to find the one that works best; and I don't like that dependency. Having written reviews of scores of books and art shows over the last nearly five decades, I find myself, first, less motivated to write them and, next, when I do commit to one, having the kind of trouble I describe. My head, I conclude, is not working so smoothly as it used to do. (It does work pretty well for crosswords, though--a less meaningful occupation...)

So that's what I've been dealing with. I will consider it a part of that serious conversation with myself and be grateful for whatever small insight the experience inspired. This morning, in meditation, I found myself resting in contemplation of the heart, looking for the goodwill to be found there--and allowing it to nudge out the darkness of ill will, where I found it. A short session, because the gardener and his crew arrived, but a rewarding one. I comfort myself with the knowledge that the heart is a more important organ than the brain!

Oh, and a pair of birds have chosen to make their nest in one of the three bird houses outside our bedroom window. They have been there since we inherited them from the previous owner and, to our knowledge, have never been used before. So we have reason to rejoice. They sing loudly. As I told Ellie when we woke, we have new noisy neighbors.