Nat

The Academy of American Poets, at poets.org, sponsors National Poetry Month every April. If you go to their web site, you can subscribe to receive a poem each day this month by email.

I have it sent to my work email account, and I’m finding, just two days in, that the arrival of the day’s poem reconnects me with my love of language and my appreciation for a life outside of work. Another of the benefits of the subscription is the additional links that each mail message includes.

Yesterday’s took me to a list of past Poets Laureate of the US Library of Congress. Louise Gluck, one of my absolute favorite poets, was listed, and it linked to one of her poem’s from last year’s book “Averno.” The poem “A Myth of Devotion” reminded me that I love the way Gluck navigates longing and the imperfection of desire throughout this entire book.

Poetry is perfect for me in April. The pleasure of language is more reliable than spring in New England. I never used to read poetry, but this web site, and the great work of the Academy of American Poets really brought it back into my life.

Michael and I have been working on a book for a few months now, and we took this weekend to get away and make a major dent in it. It shouldn’t surprise me that the work would be so much fun, I guess, but I have spent much of my adult life afraid of long writing projects.

So, today we compiled the notes that we have been writing in 15-minute bursts since November, and we turned them into an outline. Michael did the typing, which I love because it lets me pace while we talk and think. Writing for me is easier when I’m not actually writing. It is typical of Michael to make things fun for me.

The best part of the day is finding work that doesn’t feel like work. To have any activity unravel from oneself effortlessly and focus the mind so that it requires no strain can be the best kind of inspiration. That was true for me over and over today. I have been wanting to remember what a joy it is to be working, and it’s easier for me when the work is entirely my invention. The collaboration makes it even better. It occurred to me in a cafe before dinner that writing a book with another person cuts the number of words in half for each of us. Huh.

Where am I going with this? Just that spending two days thinking about how to cultivate happiness automatically puts me in mind of how to appreciate being happy. My grandmother, who passed away this week, taught me about the state of happiness years ago when I was 18. I had broken up with a girl I adored. I had been moping around for days or weeks when my grandmother came to visit with my parents. She was always glad to see me, but she became very angry with me after dinner.

“You’ve got to snap out of this,” she told me after dinner in her hotel room. “Nobody wants to be around somebody as sour and withdrawn as you are. We will put up with you because we love you, but the people who don’t love you won’t stay with you for a minute if they don’t have to.” I was shocked to be called out by her like that, but she said it in a way that really shook up my thinking.

Naturally she was right. Unhappiness itself doesn’t drive people away, but the way you wear it does. Like it or not, that’s just a cold, hard fact. Better to adopt as friendly and hopeful a demeanor as you can. With any luck, it will draw toward you people whose company will console and reassure you. Maybe they will make you laugh, or at least forget yourself for a minute.

Friendship and love can be our salvation, even when it is friendship and love we have lost. This is what I have been feeling since last night, when Michael and I arrived at the hotel and started to work. I have felt it today. I feel my grandmother near as I write, and I am grateful to her.

David Pogue’s superb technology blog contains a write up on a brilliantly energy efficient house called the Enertia house. Pogue was one of the judges in an invention contest, which was won by Michael Sykes. Sykes’ house design is for a wooden house that literally heats itself.

The wood is a resin heavy pine that creates its own atmosphere under the right design circumstances. When that happens, the heat literally stays in the walls. It’s a brilliant design and clearly deserves its prize.

The invention is built only from farm-raised yellow pine, which absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night. When I read the article, I thought it had to be a lie or an oversimplification. The house is neither. It is novel and thoughtful to the environment.

What I absolutely love is that the house solves practical local problems. We need more of those. Please check out the house. Its seems impossibly wonderful, and I’d like to see how others react.

I’ve written before about how much I admire my teenage stepdaughter. She does many things well because she has a fantastic work ethic, and she listens to coaches and teachers.

Tonight I attended her annual dance recital. They’re more fun than they used to be because she dances in many more numbers than the younger children do. There were six tonight, including a great big dance ensemble to the tune of “One” from A Chorus Line, and several others, mixing hip hop, tap, and modern.

Her kicks have gotten higher and better coordinated than they were last year. She’s been practicing, and her attention to sports has increased her conditioning and rhythm. She’s able to smile now when she dances, because she doesn’t have to concentrate impossibly hard on every second. It’s fun to watch her.

It really wasn’t long ago that dance recitals were entertaining primarily for costume changes and the music, but now our child is busy with the dance steps for which her group is responsible. The group focuses heavily dancing in character and in time. It came together well.

And it looks like a lot of fun.

Julia Cameron, author of the great book The Artist’s Way, has published a third book related to that one, called Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance. This book aims to help artists find inspiration. Like The Artist’s Way, it is filled with concrete advice for creating new work (books, paintings, songs, anything similar). In it, Cameron, a prolific writer and composer, describes her own efforts and tricks to push through her own depressing creative droughts.

In one chapter, she describes the phenomenon of “the long, dark night of the soul.” This type of bleak period of doubt, common to spiritual seekers, which I think some would describe as temptation, some would call the devil, and others would merely call inner turmoil. The 12-step programs such as Alcholics Anonymous have a saying they use to counter such events: “You can’t think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.”

So, says Cameron, list for yourself the small actions you can take that will make you happy: walk the dog, bake bread, play tennis. Then remind yourself to do these, until you are moving forward again. She recommends this approach to artists, suggesting that you make a plan to take a few, small creative steps.

It’s great advice. I recommend it. My response after reading this today on the plane was to outline a concept for a new book of poems, which felt great.

What actions do you take that reliably cheer you up?

Linda Gregg’s latest volume of poetry, In the Middle Distance, continues to amaze me as I re-read it. My teacher, Natalie, recommended it to me, and she is right to think it beautiful. Many of the poems describe the speaker’s experience of living in the desert in Texas. What is beautiful is often lonely.

Except that what Gregg writes in the poem called “Fragments” is, “Beauty has a strangeness.” Beauty can be strange on many levels, not just in the way it sometimes takes you by surprise, as with a little dog so ugly it is adorable, or in the way a person who is old and misshapen appears soulful and transcendent.

Beauty can also be strange in making itself known where it appears to have no place. This is the beauty I find myself celebrating recently. I am struck by small items that I see on the ground outside–a pine cone, a flower killed by the frost, a bit of paper caught in the branches of a tree. When the light catches them right, and if I am in the mood to find a disconnected piece of nothing more than what it is, then I determine that there is a great power at work in the universe.

Ms. Gregg’s poems are just the kind of reminder I need to see these small beauties again.

Tonight at my stepdaughter’s school, the jazz bands and chorus from the junior and senior high schools performed for 90 minutes. My stepdaughter is in eighth grade and plays flute in the junior high jazz band. The concert was beautiful and amazing.

Their school system is small, a regional school shared by three small towns in eastern Massachusetts, none of the towns bigger than 6,000 people. The high school has fewer than 500 students. And yet the music groups are outstanding year after year. This year, the eastern Massachusetts regional jazz band draws 25% of its players from our little school.

There are many reasons: chief among them the dedication from kindergarten all the way through senior year of immensely dedicated music teachers and conductors. They have all been teaching in the system for more than 15 years. All take groups to state competitions each year and take home medals. It’s very impressive.

But the best part by far is how much joy the students take in how well they play. They criticize themselves brutally and don’t like to play badly. They practice hard. Most of all, they listen to one another. This is incredibly rare. I can’t tell you how many professional meetings I attend where many people talk, but few listen to the otheres in the room.

My stepdaughter played a flute solo tonight on a Nora Jones song. My wife and I stole a look at one another as we always do when our child surprises us. It was beautiful, and I am a harsh critic.

The high school band played a Miles Davis number called Black and Green. It was moody and gentle and groovy. The kids in one group stood in the back of the room and applauded and hollered for each song by another group. The whole evening made me want to cry for joy. We are very fortunate.

It was a really good day today. My stepdaughter’s junior high school concert band won a gold medal in a statewide band competition. They played three pieces, all of them quite difficult, and when they were done, one of the judges took them into a practice room and gave a critique.

In the past two years, these judges’ crititiques have been quite harsh. This year, the judge was incredibly gentle and supportive, even when pointing out passages they could have played more skillfully.

When the announcer proclaimed them gold medal winners, all 62 kids jumped into the air, screaming with delight. It was thrilling to see how happy they and their conductor were.

Which got me thinking about how all of us create opportunities to accomplish something worthwhile. I feel this most strongly when I write and when I play sports. Yet I’m very hard on myself if I do either of those things poorly.

My stepdaughter and her band friends don’t worry much about that. They try as hard as they can, and for the rest they have a good time. It’s why they’re here. I’m trying to learn from them.

My wife and I watched “Four Weddings and a Funeral” on television yesterday. It must be the eighth or ninth time I’ve seen the movie, which I love. Every time, my favorite scene is the funeral scene in which the character Matthew eulogizes his lover by reading W. H. Auden’s “Stop All the Clocks.”

Every time, even knowing the poem is coming, I am stunned by its beauty, especially as recited by the actor for this scene. “He was my North, and South, my East and West/My working week, and my Sunday rest.”

If you don’t know the poem, buy a collection and read it. It’s heartbreaking and gorgeous.

Which brings me to grief. It’s a horrible emotion, but it has brought us some of the great art in human history: poems, songs, paintings. Which begs the question, “Do we want to be relieved of grief?” Even if that would mean we lose an essential experience of our humanity?

I wrestle with this as I think about how to make us all happier. I want for grief to remain, at least as a memory or benchmark to remind us how spectacular joy is in its face. It’s a delicate balance.

I’ve become a big fan of the show, because I’ve always loved the spectacle of humans demonstrating their tremendous skill, the outcome of their great passion and effort. There are several contestants this year, among the women, who achieve great musicality when they sing. They don’t have to sell a song because they can inhabit it.

Tonight, Melinda Doolittle brought down the house singing “My Funny Valentine.” The phrasing was great. Her stage movements were engaging and well connected to the song. Her lower register was deep and vibrant. The judges loved it, and so did I.

I’ve also been thinking about a book I just started reading, “>Living Buddha, Living Christ, by Thich Nhat Hahn. In it, Nhat Hahn, the famous Vietnamese Buddhist, describes the many similarities between the Buddha and Jesus Christ. It’s very moving to see how he brings together two towering figures who embody different traditions and makes them examples of the same great enlightenment.

Greatness inspires me. Keep singing, Idols.