Inspired by Wallace Stevens’ poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” writer-friends Lore Ferguson Wilbert and Aarik Danielsen write The Blackbird Letters. This series of letters, penned to each other but opened for anyone to read, will look at 13 aims or angles of writing. Letters will appear every other week, alternating between Lore and Aarik’s websites. The seventh dispatch is below.
Lo,
A few years back, a New York Times critic prefaced their year-end list with a bit of self-disclosure. We take inventory, they said, to stave off death.
I’m having trouble tracking down the link, so I’m writing from impression here. As I recall, the writer waited a beat, letting the reader absorb the shock of that statement. Then they stretched and softened the idea. We make lists to catalog elements of how we lived, to build a semi-permanent record of what mattered to us.
Doing so, we resist the encroaching shadows a little longer and increase the odds that some piece of us lives on.
Maybe this sounds overly serious (a trait I’ve certainly been accused of from time to time), but that column explained some of my instincts to me. It gave language to what I do, to what we do. At our simplest and most see-through, writers are romantic little vandals, carving “I was here” into the tops of every picnic table we find. We are artists tattooing our flesh with images and scenes we can’t get free of.
But I think there’s something more urgent and enduring to this notion of writing as record-keeping. We may be carving out those three little words: “I was here.” But if we attend to our jobs, our hearts fixed on the right things, we add a postscript. “And so were you.”
A few of our mutual friends—most often, the poets and pastors—enjoy reminding us of the disciple’s arc. To live each day with our hearts burning, then to be forgotten as soon as we slip beyond the crease of this world. Perhaps you’ve even written about this (it sounds like something you might ponder or process aloud).
I understand the instinct. And, on my best days, I crave this—to be buried in obscurity and enter the fullness of Jesus’ fame. But, like most noble statements, it veils a bit of nuance.
Yes, when I go, let my achievements (or lack thereof) return to dust along with the rest of me. But let some record of my life remain, if only to spur others toward living.
We move about the world too numb, too downcast. Maybe someone stumbling along will fall upon my words—in an essay, a poem, yet another list of songs or albums. And, living for a moment with what I loved, perhaps their eyes will widen to all the wonder waiting to be received.
A record of my curiosities—in the right light, at the right time—might stoke another soul, keeping them curious and searching for another day. Let my glory dissolve. I can take it. But let what I leave behind testify to the beauty of waking limbs and quickened pulses. After all, we’re told the glory of God is a man come fully alive.
Pop bands or poets, my wife’s smile lines, the prodigal wind stirring up a Midwestern thunderstorm, the way John Coltrane breathed in before blowing out a melody (I’m still tempted to write an essay about nothing more than the air traveling through his lungs). The shame that splits me like a seed. The relief I know in moments when God’s undeniable presence hovers and consoles. Let the subjects of my sentences reveal the truest object of my affection to whoever’s reading.
I confess thinking about this differently and taking it more seriously in the six years since having a son. Whether or not I address him at all, everything I write is for him. Sometimes I can’t see it until long after placing the last period on a piece. But he’s the audience.
I pray I am more tender and forthright with him every day. But I know some sentiments stay forever hidden in the heart; we don’t have the language to express them—or won’t out of pure stubbornness.
Someday he might sift through a few of my old essays and columns, and begin closing the gap. Between who I was in the drag of every day and what I was like when I was most myself. I want him to know what I stood for, what moved me, the injustices which broke my heart, how I loved him. Oh, that he would know how I loved him.
Some people leave their children family heirlooms, something to keep keeping, or record collections to sift and discover. This will be his inheritance (sorry, kid). And I just hope my records, such as they are, impart lessons I left on the table and bring him home to himself. Let my words flash and burn like Damascus Road light, knocking any last scales from his eyes.
Of course, record-keeping is the charge of all writers. You don’t have to be a parent or partnered, know your audience or sense anyone sitting over your shoulder. We keep a record of our hopes, our loves, our faith until the record forever dissolves into the thing itself.
Mary Oliver once wrote, “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” I dare not add a jot or tittle to Saint Mary’s instructions, but I might say it this way:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Or be alarmed. Fall in love or have your heart broken. Sing at the top of your lungs or sit within silence. Worship with hands lifted high or whisper just enough faith for today. Then, yes, write it down. Tell about it.
I came to your words, friend, because they fulfill the spirit and letter of Mary’s wonderful little law. You keep records of what I want to know and experience. Of the questions I want to ask. Of promises that are being kept in part now, to be realized in full someday.
And whether your words are remembered and re-read for 45 minutes after you’re gone or 45 years (I suspect the latter), they have etched “I was here—and, Aarik, you are too” into wood and stone. Keep making a record of what Lore Ferguson Wilbert is like when she’s fully alive. I need it. I know others do too.
Much love,
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