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Originally Posted by Glenn Wright
Hi, Jim—
Your first piece made me think about the finiteness of our lives. The ancient Greeks believed in three Fates: Clotho who spun the thread of life, Lachesis who measured it, and Atropos who cut it. What did Lachesis use to measure the span of a life? Breaths? Heartbeats? Days? Words? Do we have a finite number of words? If so, we should guard them like gold.
The second piece reminded me of 1 Kings 19:11-13 in which Elijah runs from Ahab and Jezebel to a cave on a mountainside trying to hear the voice of God. He listens to the wind and an earthquake, and finally hears a still, small voice from within himself, which was he voice of God.
Your third and fourth pieces seemed very personal, and both deal with questioning. Just as small children can annoy their parents by constantly asking, “Why? Why?” so our questions, leading as they do to an infinite chain of more questions, must try God’s patience.
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I’m so glad you stopped by — there are not many who venture this far out : )
These are writing exercises using a 100 word limit that I learned from John Riley who has published a book of them. I find the arbitrary limitation of 100 words to be somehow releasing in spite of their their limitation.
#1 Reflects my sense that answers to mysteries are revealed frequently, though fleetingly, if only we are able to stop. Look. Listen. Feel. But I also think it is rare that we ever retain what is revealed and so are doomed to continue rediscovering and forgetting. (This is not a firmly held conviction of mine or anything. It's just how I feel : )) Every so often, though, we might have an epiphany that alters our paradigm for the rest of our lives. Sometimes it comes in the form of trauma, sometimes love, sometimes sacrifice, sometimes research, sometimes poetry, sometimes shared experiences, etc. In an earlier draft of #1 it occurred to me that I might not ever find the words I'm looking for, nor did I even know why I was looking for them, so I simply wrote, "Thank you, thank you," 25 times to satisfy the 100 word limit.
#2 alludes to my lifelong propensity for not listening to myself. I've been reminded of that fact here on the Sphere on occasion by writers I deeply admire and respect and if I am to be honest I have to say it sometimes hurts (truth hurts sometimes). I am ever so slowly beginning to listen to myself. In fact, these four 100 word exercises are evidence of that.
I’m thrilled that you were able to see in these dashed off lines connections to Greek gods and biblical passages. I know very little about either but sometimes feel like I’m living both.
Although I would consider all of them deeply personal, you are right to see the last two as being particularly so. They are confessional. #3 at one point is me echoing John Lennon’s primal scream therapy period when he was digging back into his past in order to resolve some of his issues with his own parenting failures by revisiting the failures of his parents. (“They fuck you up, your mum and dad” as Phillip Larkin said : ))
#4 flirts with existential thoughts and tries to grasp and hold on to the people in my life that give it meaning.
Thanks very much for coming here to read these.
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