books | Michael Valliant

Waiting, Seeing, Creating

The older I get, the more I am convinced that Dr. Seuss had it all figured out. If you want to understand our environmental predicament, read “The Lorax.” If you want an ode to the imagination, go after “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street.” And if you want to know about life, dreams, and what it is to try to get through it all, read “Oh the Places You’ll Go.”

I know “The Waiting Place” better than I’d like to. I venture out, explore, reflect, live in the moment, but sooner or later, I recognize it. I’ve circled back to the waiting place. As much as I try to be my own man; as much as I try to be open to God’s voice and direction; as much as I try to be open to the Universe, God and the Universe move at their own pace, not mine. And so, the waiting.

It can be a habit. But waiting doesn’t have to be just sitting around. I can wait actively. I am not in prison. And even in prison, there are role models for how to wait.

Andy Dufresne, of Shawshank Redemption fame, had more meaningful adventures behind bars than most free men have. But he came to a point where he realized it was time to make a change, even at the cost of his life. I realize there are movies and books that I come back to a good bit, and Shawshank will likely continue to be one of them. Andy’s “get busy living, or get busy dying,” sticks in my soul as a life mantra. A reminder.

Dufresne and Louis Goldstein could have been peeps. The only words I remember from my Washington College graduation were Goldstein’s, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” That was his take on “God helps those who help themselves.” Maybe you’re in the waiting place, well, get up and do something about it, or don’t expect to move very far.

When we are in the waiting place, we can feel stuck. Or I can. And part of that reason is because we know the waiting place. We can get comfortable waiting. We know what it feels like. So we hang on. And by hanging on, we make ourselves stuck. It’s by letting go that we move on in the direction we are supposed to go.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu

So we need to let go. Be unanchored. Undone. Untethered. We need to start. To start something new, to create. In the letting go, in the creating, what we need is to create, to begin our lives anew. Each day.

To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy. It is also to speak of our connecting to the Divine in us and of our bringing the Divine back to the community. This is true whether we understand our creativity to be begetting and nourishing our children, making music, doing theater, gardening, teaching, running a business, painting, constructing houses, or sharing the healing arts of medicine and therapy. – Matthew Fox (the minister, author of “Original Blessing,” not the actor from “Lost”)

We get out of the waiting place by being ourselves, differently. By opening ourselves to creativity. By creating our lives. By being inspired and doing something with that inspiration. By allowing God to light a spark in us and being consumed by the spark of Divine inspiration.

Dreams Aren’t Hash Browns

Dreams aren’t hash browns. You can’t just walk into Waffle House and order your dreams “scattered, smothered, covered, topped, and chunked.” Unless you dream of hash browns. Which is understandable.

For most of us, realizing our dreams takes vision, ideas, focus, work, luck, connections, Divine Intervention, or some combination thereof. And it’s a lot easier to put them off, defer them, without even realizing it. Distractions abound. I have yet to find that dream menu.

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul’s call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. We’re doing exactly what TV commercials and pop materialist culture have been brainwashing us to do from birth. Instead of applying self-knowledge, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work, we simply consume a product. – Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art”

Forgive me my soapbox. This stuff all strikes a pretty deep soul chord for me. I’m a carpe the diem guy. I try to make the most of each day and not miss opportunities to kayak, paddleboard, or catch a sunset. I try to remember, store, and appreciate those experiences in and for themselves, as well as transmute or translate them into something I can pass along.

Sometimes carpe’ing the diem means forgoing the sunrise to think and write. The September issue of Tidewater Times is online, and it has a book review I got to collaborate with friend and former teacher Father John Merchant to put together. Father Merchant sent me a copy of Yann Martel’s “The High Mountains of Portugal,” so it seemed fitting to turn it back around on him. Sometimes carpe’ing the diem means putting in the work (planting the seeds) to make something happen later.

Some of my dreams require trail running shoes. Coming up with fun outdoor challenges, doing them, and writing about them helped me land a cover feature story for Trail Runner Magazine in June 2008 and I’ve been looking to create more of those kind of adventures, both to experience and to write about.

The next adventure, running-hiking-walking the Appalachian Trail across Maryland with trail running friends, is in the planning phase to take place this fall (a shout out to Craig Behrin for channeling the spirit of the adventure into a cool logo). That is the kind of experience where so many of the things in life that I dig all come together.

I can dream things up all day long. Anyone can. It’s when I start to do things about them, come up with ways to make them happen, and start acting on them, that life gets interesting, and maybe God smiles.

Whom can I ask what I came to make happen in this world? – Pablo Neruda, “The Book of Questions”

Living Stones

Sometimes I would like to be rock, stone, standing impermeable against the elements, against the world.

But neither rock nor stone win in the end; they get taken down; eaten away, cracked, eroded over time.

Wind and water abide. Their persistence and patience are too much for stone.

People have always sought meaning, wisdom, and strength in rocks, it seems. From building tools and weapons, to palming and rubbing a stone smooth in our hands.

I am drawn to stones.

Carl Jung knew something about why:

Many people cannot refrain from picking up stones of a slightly unusual color or shape and keeping them… without knowing why they do. It is as if the stone held a mystery in it that fascinates them. Men have collected stones since the beginning of time and have apparently assumed that certain ones were containers of the spirit of the life force with all its mystery. – Carl Jung, “Man and His Symbols”

The church I grew up going to is built of stone. It has the feel of something ancient, something permanent. I have to go back to Jung:

The stone symbolized something that can never be lost or dissolved, something eternal that some have compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s own soul. It symbolizes what is perhaps the simplest and deepest experience of something eternal that man can have in those moments when he feels immortal and unalterable. – Carl Jung, “Man and His Symbols”

Ah, but the hubris of man. Our audacity. We want something permanent. We want something to build on; to be that which is built on. The cool, vastness of a mountain. Let me be that. To stand like stone.

We use stones as offerings. We build. Standing stones were built, formations, as offerings to God. A temple.

But God prefers people.

You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house
– 1 Peter 2:5

People build with stone. God builds his greatest work, love, with people.

Living stones. Being built into something. Maybe I can build with words. If not my own, then Gary Snyder’s as an incantation:

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.

Snyder’s words are riprap. Pick mine up like a stone to rub in your hand and carry with you. Pocket them and pull them out when you need them.

What will they say to you?

Saturday Prayer

I have not sat still well today. Solitude’s double-edged sword had me pacing, caged.

I walked Harper across town to the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry and back in the morning. I cut grass, which brings on thinking for me. I read and wrote for a book review article coming due. Changed lightbulbs. Sitting in the yard, I had to move.

I hop on my bike and cruise through town, riding down to the shoreline at the park. I pull Gary Snyder’s “Turtle Island” from my pocket, in all its underlined, written in, and dog-eared grace.

I close my eyes with my face in the sun. An evening breeze brushes my ears and hair.

The waves are sharing an embrace and a conversation with the shoreline; sitting in silence, it is all I can hear–a soundtrack no less extraordinary for being commonplace.

I bend my head in prayer to listen. Language doesn’t need words to speak. No, that’s not it. God doesn’t need words to speak to those who listen.

I leaf through Snyder, who offers a “Prayer for the Great Family:”

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
holding or releasing; streaming through all
our bodies salty seas
in our minds so be it

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
bears and snakes sleep–he who wakes us–
in our minds so be it

I don’t properly write in my pocket notebook very often, opting for a bigger one where my mind stretches more. But the pocket notebook made the bike ride, and as I scrawl these thoughts together, I see words bleeding through from the next page.

They are Ava’s from the rehab hospital last year. She was working on getting her words back with a therapist–she couldn’t find the right words to say, to answer, but she could write them down. Today being a year since the seizure that landed her there, it doesn’t seem a coincidence to have her words find me here.

I close now wet eyes again to listen to the river. And God.

Riding my bike through town, life goes on. People are happy eating, walking, biking. There are kids playing in the sand and ankle deep in the water at the Strand.

Almost home, I turn up Jack’s Point Rd., and an Eastern Bluebird flies across the road in front of me, into a vacant lot. I have only seen a handful of bluebirds in town and I smile. If you read birds, happiness must be nearby.

Of Herons and Intentions

Herons are personal for me. It’s not easy to explain, but they are somehow a connection, a link to nature and the broader Universe. Mary Oliver calls a Great Blue Heron a “blue preacher.” If you’ve ever watched one–methodical, thoughtful, graceful, you can see why.

My connection to Great Blue Herons deepened when I was training for my first marathon. I could be struggling on a long, low energy run, see one sitting on Papermill Pond or some cove, and instantly feel energized, recharged. It happened often enough to be weird (in a cool way). It would make me smile as I pushed on. A heron run was a good run. And that still happens.

Great Blue Herons are flighty. They take off as soon as you get close to them. Their take offs and landings are so awkward and take enough time and effort that it makes sense for self-preservation why they would be quick to bolt. Lately my interest has been equally on watching the more versatile, cagey, and dexterous Green Herons–there is a rookery on Town Creek in Oxford and they are everywhere. On a lazy evening paddle, we watched one scamper along rip rap in step with us, looking for something to eat. I’ve been thinking about a Green Heron tattoo to keep my Great Blue company.

Peter Matthiessen traveled five continents searching for 15 species of cranes. His adventures are chronicled in the book, “The Birds of Heaven: Travels with Cranes.” I’m not as ambitious as Petey, nor do I have the time or budget to spread such a wide net. But I dig the notion as a model.

Sometimes I find putting my intentions out there makes me more accountable and more likely to make them happen. I’m making my scope regional–whether Eastern Shore, or Maryland, or Mid-Atlantic, we’ll have to see how it comes together. There will be road tripping involved. The goal is to find and see as many types of herons as can be found in the area. Word went out yesterday morning that a Tricolored Heron had been spotted in Grasonville. That’s the kind of occurrence to take note of.

I’m not a biologist, nor am I looking to make a documentary. I’m going to try for a more creative approach to whatever writing comes out of this, and take a carpe the diem, fun, road trip, and enjoy nature approach to looking for them.

We have a finite amount of time spinning around on the globe here. That’s a perfect reason for going after things that move us, connect us, ground us, inspire us. It’s time for me to expand on what it means to have or make a heron run.

A Writer Writes: The Gameplan

At any given point you can look back at your life. Hopefully you see things that make you proud: the kind of person you are, how you treat people, maybe you have kids and see who they are becoming, personal accomplishments, relationships, etc. But, if when you look back, you continue to not see something you thought you would see; meaning you haven’t done something you wanted to try; it might be worth taking a closer look at it.

For the past 18 years or so, I have had jobs that required me to write. And that’s great, I enjoy it. But only sometimes did those jobs send me after the kind of writing that I would choose to do on my own. I’ve been able to find chances here and there to pursue writing on the fringes, but never a sustained attempt. I’m trying to change that.

Steven Pressfield sees what gets in the way of me, or people in general, going after those things that make up our dreams. He wrote “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” which became a movie, and you’ll recognize a number of his other books. But it’s “The War of Art,” that has my attention at the moment. Pressfield calls it “Resistance,” that thing that stands in the way of people trying to achieve their dreams:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.

He points out Resistance as that force that stops us from doing something–from starting to workout or diet, to trying something new, to going to church, starting a business, painting, writing, from the simple to the profound. It takes the form of procrastination, excuses, it can be inviting or intimidating or rational. But it stops us, by whatever means. Until it doesn’t. And hopefully it doesn’t take a near death experience, or a mid-life crisis, or something of the sort to make us want to get past it.

When I looked around at myself, at how I spend my time away from work, my mornings, my evenings, I saw some things I liked. Spending time with the girls, running, trying to make the most of the mornings. And I saw some things I didn’t: like week day happy hours in the evenings after work sapping momentum, creativity, motivation. And not much writing. It seemed time to make some changes.

The August issue of Tidewater Times is out now. You can pick up a pocket-sized copy of the coolest, carry-with-you magazine on the Eastern Shore from a number of different places. Or you can read it online here. On page 177 in the online version, is the first of an ongoing series of articles and book reviews I’ll be writing there. It helps to have friends like Jim Brighton, who are doing remarkable things like the Maryland Biodiversity Project. If you are the Facebook type, they have more than 5,700 folks following awesome photographs and natural history posts. Regular articles in Tidewater Times is one part.

Getting this site rolling is another. I’ve got others in mind. Stay tuned. It’s also about surrounding myself with other like-minded folks, a creative community of people exploring life and their passions, and making the most out of each day. Some of it will be interviewing and writing about those folks, with Jim being one of them. People have different passions and talents. It could be giving up an office job and opening up a restaurant; it could be starting your own landscaping company and happily spending your days surrounded by nature. When someone’s passion becomes their story, that’s a pretty cool thing to see happen and to share with others.

There are writers out there whose lives and books inspire me daily. Peter Matthiessen and his environmentalism and spirituality. Tony Horwitz and his ways of tying history to the present in ways no one seems to have looked at. Thomas Merton and Frederick Buechner and their callings by God to follow Him and write about it. Gary Snyder and his seamless synthesis of words, nature, the Cosmos.

It’s a big world out there, full of remarkable people doing stuff that no one else can do in just the way that they are. My sense is that each of us has something of that in us.

The writer Will Durant summarized Aristotle by saying, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” That’s a habit I’d like to make. It will make for much better happy hour conversations on the weekends.