Writing Continuities

Well, it’s another Sunday morning, and I’m back at the Richter’s Altstadt Bäckerei (“Old City Bakery”), the café around the corner from my apartment building in Wolfenbüttel.  I’m huddled into my usual corner booth, in the back corner of the second floor, by the same window that overlooks the same little cobblestone alley that I have watched so many Sundays before. I think it is this morning that completely brings the last two-and-a-half months of being on the road, on the plane, packing, moving and traveling full circle. For now at least, I am back where all this began--which was in the first place a journey to Germany.

But this place has also changed slightly. It has only been two months, and the autumn sun hangs lower in the sky than when last I was here. The cobblestoned alleyway is faintly darker than I remember at this hour of the morning, the colors of the half-timber buildings along the road contrasting themselves more distinctly in the crisp, October air. A rose plant from somewhere on the ground level has grown up to grace this second-floor window, its winding branches having long surrendered their roses and, in their place, have sprouted blood-red thorns that will stay for the winter. In a town like Wolfenbüttel, where so much stays the same over long periods of time, these small signs are some of the few indicators that I have—indeed—been gone.

But, for now, I’ve returned.

~*~

Though the rosebuds have long fallen away, and the morning light of the sun dwindles in the autumnal shadows, most things around here remain the same. I am sitting at the same oak table, in front of the same computer, drinking a coffee from the same, white Richter’s teacup. Around the corner, I am living in the same apartment, with the same roommate, working in the same library, on the same dissertation project. In the terminology of historians, those are the “continuities,” the things which have stayed the same over time.  Continuities—whether they consist of aspects in our present lives, or artefacts from the distant past—act as the controls in the grand experiment of time, life and experience.  By determining continuities, we can better gauge “discontinuity,” or that which has changed over time.

All of history, perhaps all of the human experience, is a tension between continuity and discontinuity. And without Time, there would be neither.  To borrow a phrase from a Holocaust-era historian, Marc Bloch, time is the plasma in which events are suspended. And I would add, time is the plasma in which continuity is suspended. Constancy. Stability. Stabilitas. It is only the experience of upheaval, of the perpetual tide of temporal change, that we can perceive constancy.

I have spent a lot of time lately detailing all the discontinuities in my life, all the relocating, traveling and all-over-the-place-ness that I feel deep in the marrow of my jet-lagged soul.  Perhaps, though, the reason I get so preoccupied by discontinuity is because—normally—my life contains so much continuity?

~*~

Before returning to Germany, The Boyfriend gave me a very special gift. To be more precise, The Boyfriend sprinkled dozens of very special gifts my way as he is apt to do, but one of them was among the most special. It was an icon of St. John the Theologian and his scribe, writing the Gospel of John. In the icon, St. John is next to his scribe, thinking of how to phrase his words. On the scroll held by the scribe, you can see the Greek words for “In the beginning was the word”—the first words of his gospel. From the top left-hand corner of the images, the rays of the Holy Spirit penetrate the image like a shining hand, so as to aid the apostel in his task.

The Boyfriend intended it to be an encouragement to me when working on my dissertation. Unpacking my things upon returning to Germany, I placed the icon on the corner of the desk where I work in my apartment, hoping it would—you know—do its thing, namely, write my dissertation for me.      

~*~

The Boyfriend and I walked into the airport looking like we were off to a funeral. The hardest thing about traveling, by far, is saying goodbye. I was so sad I barely realized what the clerk was saying at the check-in counter: my flight was overbooked. They were switching my flight to Frankfurt. Four hours with nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company, $67 in airport-issued dinner vouchers for the two of us, and a good deal of airport exploring later, The Boyfriend and I finally said goodbye outside of the security gate.

Since we’d waited until the last possible minute to give our final waves and air-kisses through the security lines, I ran to my gate and got there after the final boarding call, just as they were closing the doors to the plane. They hurried me to my seat, which just happened to be next to two empty ones. I did something I’ve never done before in all my years of flying: I slept the entire flight.

Continuity #1: blessings when you least expect them.

~*~

But  continuities are not always good, and discontinuity is not always bad. One major continuity in my life is the age-old struggle that must be waged daily against writing. At times, writers are unable to write due to writer’s block—they have no instruments, no idea of the shape they ought to carve from the roughly hewn rock lodged in their mind.  Their creativity has grown cold and hard, as though cursed into a bleak stone for all of eternity. It sounds really awful.

I wish I could have writer’s block. Instead, I’ve been cursed—or perhaps blessed—with the inverse opposite affliction: writer’s flood, I call it. Or, when it’s really bad, writer’s Niagara Falls. Writer’s Hurricane Katrina. Sometimes I call it writer’s big bang, but that is getting away from the whole flood analogy so I’ll stop there. When afflicted by writer’s flood—which is anywhere from 6.5-7 days per week—I watch my days pass by as though through a kaleidescope of countless beautiful things worthy of expressing in words.  All of those beautiful things are tied together by meaningful connections, and thoughts flow from the seams of those connections like streams of water begging to be gathered into a cistern, so as not to just dry up and sink back into the ground of idle thought.

The problem is that, on any given day, there may be dozens of such streams flowing into the cistern of the right-brain-dominated head. When I sit down to write, or (as is usually the case) think about sitting down to write, I find that there are too many tools at my disposal; too many words and synonyms, too many thoughts and ideas and connections between those ideas.  I can’t just write about one thing—after all, why write about one thing if you can write about fourteen distinct things simultaneously, and somehow try to make them all fit together seamlessly in a nearly sacramental unity of conceptualizations, like a giant crossword puzzle of thoughts?  And so, instead of a stone, creativity turns into a rushing waterfall, drowning its bearer in hurricanes of possible thoughts to express, rendering her incapable of writing about even one thing, let alone the fourteen things she had originally wanted to weave into a tapestry of words.         

Which is one reason why I love the icon The Boyfriend gave me. It reminds me that it’s not just me at this table. It reminds me that there is something about writing which is sacred, if we allow it. Besides, I just plain like St. John. Sometimes, in the writing of his Gospel, he got a little carried away by lofty ideas, like I tend to do when I write. His work is by far the most abstract, theologically-dense of the four Gospels. For example, in their narratives concerning Jesus’ life, all of the other Gospel writers begin with the geneology of Jesus. Actually, Mark (the shortest Gospel) doesn’t even go through the trouble—he starts smack dab in the middle of things, with the ministry of St. John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and forerunner. St. John, on the other hand, starts not with John the Baptist, not with Jesus’ parents, not with Israel or Abraham or Noah or even Adam and Eve. No, he starts with the beginning of the universe. Actually, he goes back even farther—his Gospel starts in eternity.

~*~

Thanks to a wonderfully refreshing in-flight sleep, I hit the ground in Frankfurt running. While I was explaining my reasons for returning to Germany, the jolly old customs official told me to slow down—then asked where I learned such good German that I could talk so fast, and so correctly. 

                One aspect of German ingenuity is its transportation system. There is a huge trainstation in the ground floor of the Frankfurt airport. You just get on a train and can travel to anywhere in Germany—without even setting foot outside! That particular morning, I had a choice to make, and had purposely waited till arriving to make it (I didn’t know how much energy I would have after the flight). Do I buy a high-speed rail ticket to Wolfenbüttel for €85,00 (about USD$ 120.00) or a regional train ticket for €42,00? Before you answer that question, bear this in mind: a regional train ticket would involve at least four train switches, carrying two suitcases and a backpack alone, and at least 8 hours enroute from Frankfurt to Wolfenbüttel (a highspeed ticket would mean 1-2 switches with about four hours enroute).

            That’s right, I chose the regional train ticket. I knew it was a risk, but I had the energy and took it as a blessing. Four hours, three (of ultimately eight) switches, and no caffeine later, I was killing time in the Kassel train station when it hit me: I was, miraculously, content. I was in an unfamiliar trainstation, having been enroute for nearly 20 hours, with an unknown duration of travel ahead of me, and over one hundred pounds of luggage hanging off me, and I felt... strangely…. At home in the midst of it all. This, I believe, is what I have gleaned from six months of living out of a suitcase.

            Continuity #2: Being at rest while enroute.

~*~

When I write my dissertation on time perception in the early modern period, I would love to have a Johannine introduction: In the beginning was time. [cue Handel’s Halleluja Chorus.] If I wrote this, though, my doctoral advisor would mark it up to high heavens (no pun intended) with her green pen. (She used to use red pens to correct her students’ work, but one time I told her that looking at red pen marks ties my stomach into nervous knots, and she switched. Now green and red pens tie my stomach into nervous knots.) Irregardless, in the margins of my introduction, she would write things like “too broad” and “KISS” (Keep It Simple, Stupid), and “Focus your introduction!” And I would feel my passion for the birth of time was being a little under valued. 

Sensing St. John the Theologian to be a kindred spirit, I understand what he was after—I mean, besides a divinely-inspired and theologically-rich opening. I bet at first he really thought he would be able to write down everything. Somewhere around his dictation of (our) chapter six our seven, reality probably started dawning on him. “Wow,” he probably said  to himself. “We just got past the part where Jesus first started his formal ministry, and we’ve already used up all this parchment, and my scribe is getting impatient with me! There’s not going to be ANY room for what’s to come, at this rate. What am I going to do?”

If I had been him, I’ll tell you exactly what I would have done at this point, because it’s exactly what I do almost everytime I sit down to write. I would have given up right then and there. What on earth is the point of writing anything at all, if I can’t write about everything possible on that subject?

~*~

By the time I finally made it off the train in Wolfenbüttel, it was nearly ten o’clock at night. My plane had landed at 11:30AM in Frankfurt. Ten-and-a-half hours en-route via train. An eight hour flight. Four-and-a-half hours in an airport preceding that. A half hour drive to the airport. Survey says?  Just under twenty-four hours enroute. I felt, surprisingly, great.

                I dragged my two suitcases (tied together with a band for easy dragging) and backpack through the sleepy streets of little Wolfenbüttel, remembering how disorienting it had been the first time I arrived here last spring. Now, I knew my way from the train to my apartment, and through all the little nooks and crannies of the old city. After dropping my bags off at my apartment, I had exactly ten minutes to go grocery shopping before the only store that was opened closed. I bought bread, milk, goat cheese cream cheese spread, some eggs, some apples. This was enough to make a simple meal of eggs and toast for the night, which propelled me as I unpacked my suitcases and proceeded to set up house. I made the bed, placed my shoes in a line under my wardrobe, fingered through the scarves The Boyfriend had helped me fold my last night in Toronto. It made me miss him, and yet it made him there with me in a way, too. I hung them out to aerate and unwrinkle for the night. It was one o’ clock before I finally hit the sack—and in Germany it literally is a sack, because you sleep under feather beds wrapped in decorative linen sacks (duvet covers). But, as exhausted as I finally was, it was worth it. My apartment was, once again, my home.

                Continuity #3: Finding home no matter where I am.

~*~

Fortunately, St. John didn’t give up on his writing project, instead, he plodded along faithfully in his narrative. Whereas the beginning of his work opens stuninngly, like a marvelous velvet curtain framing the life of Christ within the beginning of time, his narrative ends rather abruptly with these words: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). The curtain closes with a rush, and for a moment, we--the readership—remain seated, scanning the next page of our Bibles with uncertainty. OH, that’s the end.  [awkward silence.]

                Those concluding clauses may strike some readers as beautiful and awe-inspiring, which I suppose they are. But to a gluttonous writer and reader such as myself, I sense a little bit of misery in the same beauty. It is the form of post-partum grief many writers face after giving birth to their work—particularly the writer’s flood brand of writers like me and, per my wishful thinking, St. John. This grief arises from the acknowledgment that, after all that toiling and burdensome writing, one could still not wrestle into words everything one wanted to say. You could write an entire book, which is a nearly impossible endeavor in and of itself, only to realize that you could have written all the books in the entire world, and still have more that could be written down.

                To write something well is to let go of the countless other things we will never write. To use one word is to let go of all the possible synonyms one could have used. To taste something good is to let go of all the good things we will never taste in our life time. To fully be present in one place is to let go of all the places you wish you could be in at the same time. To read one book deeply is to let go of all the other books we wish we could also read.  To notate the thousands of primary sources at the archive is to let go of all the other ones I may never get a chance to look at. To write one dissertation about one analytical question is to let go of all the other questions and fascinations and ideas that occur to me along the way. Because if we never let go, we can never take hold of something thoroughly, or fully taste, feel, read, work, pray, live. Or, as St. Nektarios put it, all of life is a catharsis, a purging and letting go. It is in letting go that we take hold; in dying that we live.

And I know that it is the letting go part that I, as a writer, need to come to terms with if I am ever going to be able to survive the writer’s flood. It is something I will need to come to terms with if I am able to write my dissertation next school year, when my research here is done. Truth be told, however, I am afraid to let go of all the other things, lest they leave me with nothing in my hands. Lest I finally succumb not to writer’s flood, but to writer’s block. But, I have ten months to learn to let go. And this blog to practice on. And the icon of St. John. And the same Holy Spirit who helped him. And people who love me enough to read my words and help me. And I have other things as well, but if every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

               

Yes, that’s the end.