Afterthought #16 – Be Longing

This post might better be titled a “forethought” that precedes a future essay about “ways of belonging among Quakers.”  That was the theme of last weekend’s Spring gathering of Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting. Quakers from Washington and Northwest Idaho met, as we do twice a year, at a retreat center in the Manastash Canyon near Ellensburg, WA.  Outside my cabin door, the creek burbled, and the sunrise backlit the ridge above the camp.

I’m still reflecting on the sharing about what brought us to Quakerism, what keeps us in this faith tradition, and the wide variety of ways that people experience a sense of belonging.  A thread that ran through many experiences, though, was summed up by one Friend’s examination of the word belonging.  He broke that single word into two—be longing—and suggested that at the heart of the spiritual search is a deep longing to be part of a community. It was good to be among people whose yearning is met among Quakers.

Beginning in January 2012, I instituted posting an “Afterthought” on the last day of each month, fashioned after a practice in some Quaker meetings. After meeting for worship ends, some groups continue in silence for a few more minutes during which members are invited to share thoughts or reflect on the morning's worship. I’ve adopted the form here for brief reflections on headlines, quotes, comments overheard, maybe even bumper stickers.

Writing the Quotidian

Quotidian.  I read that word in an essay I critiqued during my first semester in my MFA in writing program. I had to look it up.  Ironically, it’s a fancy word for something that’s not, well, very fancy.  Here’s how the New Oxford American Dictionary defines it:

quotidian |kwōˈtidēən|

adjective [ attrib. ]

·        of or occurring every day; daily : the car sped noisily off through the quotidian traffic.

·        ordinary or everyday, esp. when mundane : his story is an achingly human one, mired in quotidian details.

While this word hasn’t become a regular part of my vocabulary, its meaning resonates for me.  Apparently it does for some other writers as well. Patrick Madden wrote in praise of “Quotidian Nonfiction” in Issue #44, Spring 2012 - Creative Nonfiction:

“I prefer, in both my writing and in my reading, meditative material that considers the quotidian, that pauses and ponders, moving slowly, calmly—the kind of work that would never incite a controversy, work that balances intellect and emotion, with perhaps a bit of spirit.”

Madden, an essayist and writing teacher, claims to lean toward quotidian nonfiction “because my own life so rarely excites even me; I could never win over readers through shock or exoticism.”

I know the feeling.  It crops up for me often as I write personal essays and draft my memoir. My life has been shaped by ordinary experiences of birth, loss, work, parenting, friendship, and spiritual seeking. Experiences described by many of the synonyms that the New Oxford lists for quotidian:  typical, middle-of-the-road, unremarkable, unexceptional, workaday, commonplace, a dime a dozen.  In short, “nothing to write home about.”

And yet I do write about these everyday experiences.  Am compelled to craft essays about community, listening, patience, simplicity.  Feel led to tell the stories of “ordinary, everyday” people whose voices often aren’t heard.  Patrick Madden attests to the value of such writing:

“This, for me, is the placid beauty of the best creative nonfiction writing: the opportunity to settle one’s buzzing mind for a few brief moments, to meditate on a focused subject, to escape the plangent assaults of the beeping, blinking world and find respite in the thoughts of another human being… I think we have a right to (and a hunger for) art that is quieter, more enlightening and uplifting.”

Fortunately, an abundance of nonfiction writers create the kind of quiet and uplifting art that many of us yearn for.  One of them, Ana Maria Spagna, is my thesis advisor at NILA (Northwest Institute of Literary Arts). Not only is she teaching me how to tell my story through well-crafted scenes, settings, and characters, but also her own “quiet” writing enlightens me.

Another is Scott Russell Sanders who I’ll study with this summer at Fishtrap on the Zumwalt Prairie in northeastern Oregon. I met Sanders at my first residency at NILA and have become a devoted reader of his writing that springs, as he explains in Writing from the Center, from accepting “the material that my life had given me, and… learning to say as directly as I could what I had to say.”

Also on my list of quotidian writers is Kathleen Dean Moore, Brian Doyle, and Brenda Miller. All of them practice what Madden urges:

 “ …each of us, I dare say, can do with a little more wonder in our lives, can benefit by shunning the artificial and superficial to spend more time contemplating the quotidian miracles that surround us.”

What quotidian miracles surround you?