Prompt 183. From Inside the Monastery
& novelist Joanne Proulx on getting low
Hi friend,
Not long ago, one of my beloveds texted me some wisdom from the spiritual teacher Ram Dass. “What’s the difference between a prison and a monastery?” Dass would ask. The answer: “Almost nothing. Both are filled with people who are alone in their cells all day, far from the world. The difference is that for the monks it is heaven, for the prisoners it is hell.”
This resonated with me here in my hospital room, which I find to be a strange blend of the two. Through experience, I’ve learned Dass’s implied lesson—learned that it’s possible to transform this cell to a sanctum of reflection and solitude. And the way I do it? By looking around not with the eyes of someone who is facing death, but someone who is newly born. I have to be astonished by this tiny, often grim world, to see even the smallest details as inherently interesting—as beautiful, or absurd, or even uproariously funny.
As one example, I spent a few days earlier this week on a nausea-induced hunger strike, with the nutritionist pleading with me to eat. Finally she brought in the kid’s menu, and I chose the squeezable applesauce packets and “the crunch box,” which is a little plastic clamshell filled with sliced apple, carrots sticks, cheddar cheese, and goldfish—not a green thing in sight. It’s hard to express how delightful this is. Nursing a squeezable™, I feel like an utterly absurd two-year-old.
This is not some simplistic “change your mind, change your life” solution. I can’t opt out of my corporeal reality; I don’t have the spiritual muscles to lift myself out of physical discomfort. So I have to learn to hold both: to be in great pain and, at the same time, to find some small respite. I can’t wait for dreamy, poetic moments of inspiration (as when the above image—of a roseate spoonbill holding me in an inflatable lifeboat—occurred to me), but work very hard to seek them anywhere and everywhere I can. And wonderfully, when I start looking, I find them more often. I feel them more often.
Today we have a short essay and prompt on shifting perspective and seeking wonder in unexpected places. It’s from the award-winning novelist and epic human Joanne Proulx. It’s brilliant, filled with such gorgeous images, written in that swoon-worthy prose that makes you want to write. So let’s get to it.
Sending love,
Suleika
P.S. A few days ago, my dear maman helped me film my first video diary to send to you. It’s a tour of my current workspace (Studio Visit: Hospital Edition!). If you haven’t yet, become a paid subscriber to watch it here!
P.P.S. Our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual writing hour, is happening today from 1-2 pm ET, with Carmen hosting. Paid subscribers, the info to join is here!
The Isolation Journals is my newsletter for people seeking to transform life's interruptions into creative grist. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, where you get added benefits like access to my advice column Dear Susu, an archive of interviews with amazing artists, behind-the-scenes tidbits from me, our virtual writing hour the Hatch, and other opportunities for creative community.
Prompt 183. Look Down, Get Low, Think Small by Joanne Proulx
One summer I was in a horrible boating accident, which put me in a wheelchair for months. It was over fifteen years ago now and, perhaps oddly, what’s stuck with me most from that time is how the slightest drop in elevation changed everything. Two feet down, I lived in a landscape of crotches, eye-to-eye with first graders, my face a licking post for the tongues of tall dogs. During the long, unsettling days of Covid, I’ve had a similar shift in perspective. With cities shut down, theatres shuttered and friendships cordoned off, I retreated to our family’s cabin in the wilds of Ontario, Canada where I began spending long hours in the forest. As a child I’d collected its stones, mosses and mushrooms, built lush mini-worlds in shoeboxes, populated them with painted acorn people.
This time I took model train people into the forest and got back down on my knees. Stuck a 1/64th-scale woman in a yellow dress into a thatch of broom moss and took her picture. Delightful. But soon I left the tiny people behind and let the forest floor tell its own story. Low down, in the knit of yesterday’s pine needles, everywhere I looked, staggering beauty, so easy to miss while standing. Stumps like mossy castles, bright orange sea jellies on the bellies of fallen logs, puddles that held the whole sky. I swooned at the mushrooms. Their tininess. The whimsy of their caps. The spring of them in my hand, like rubber spun from silk. How they shot up overnight, untethered from the creep of the human clock. Soon I was in love with thousand-year-old lichens. Took videos of streams and cricks so I could listen to their babble when I left them behind.
I once walked through the world with such certitude, convinced by what lay before me. Now I know reality comes in layers, complex and delicious. Crawling around the forest floor has slowed me down, brought me closer to the earth, and made me somehow braver. How can our world be so scary when there’s more beauty in a square foot of forest, more wisdom than we’d expect in an acre? Humbled, heart opened, desirous, now when I step outside I look down, get low, think small.
Your prompt for the week:
Instructions for living a life. / Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it. —Mary Oliver
Climb a ladder. Or crawl across the kitchen floor. Drop to your knees in the forest, the garden, the guest room. Tell us what astonishes you about life at a different level.
If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments below, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.
Today’s Contributor
Joanne Proulx’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet, was published internationally, won Canada’s Sunburst Award for Fantastic Fiction, and was made into a feature film. Her second novel, We All Love the Beautiful Girls, was named as one of a hundred best books by the Globe and Mail in 2017. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, Joanne lives, writes, and teaches in Ottawa, Canada.
On March 8, Joanne will be reading an excerpt from her third novel, a work-in-progress titled There Will Be Swimming, as part of a Zoom literary series hosted by Literati, an indie bookstore in Michigan.
Studio Visit: Hospital Edition
In lieu of a typical Studio Visit, Suleika gives us a tour of her workspace (hospital edition!) and her instructions for transforming isolation into creative solitude. If you haven’t yet, become a paid subscriber to watch it!
Suleika, thank you for the tour. And, Joanne, what a great prompt.
My perspective shift musings:
Kierkegaard wrote that "purity of heart is to will one thing."
My office had become the "Museum of Me." It was also a physical representation of my brain -- chaotic, choked, clogged, a collage of so many ideas, projects, clippings, and possibilities. It was even painted a color I didn't like anymore.
An introverted, minimalist, taciturn friend had once gasped and visibly recoiled when he'd entered my office. It was too much for him.
It had become too much for me too and had become a prison during a stint working long hours alone on computer tasks that had to be done to help grow a nonprofit. I cared about the work but had lost myself too much in it. I had set aside creative practices. I couldn't go on that way. I also could not imagine coming back from the brink in that same space.
I knew I had to turn the office/museum into a studio for more writing, creating and breathing freely. Same space, new purpose.
So for six months I have removed every file, book, piece of art, stick of furniture -- 61 years worth. I've given away 70% of my books... gasp! I've culled. And sat with the emptiness of the space. And whenever I felt that something was too hard to part with because it was part of me, I heard the Spirit's whisper, "Girl there's more where that came from." More inspiration, more fun, more ideas.
I'm surprised at how little I want, how clear the choices are, how gorgeous it feels to sit with bright colors and empty walls, to stare at empty bookshelves and to know that in the waiting and spaciousness, new life is forming -- phoenix-like and barely perceptible.
Wheat and chaff are being separated. Clarity is growing.
I can imagine collaborations and creations. I appreciate both the silence and the simmering ideas.
I am giddy with the prospects. And it happened without a bulldozer.
Hi Suleika! I'm happy to see that my book suggestion of Little Weirds made it to you and everybody! I didn't know how active this little community was, but it lit up my day on Friday to see that it was in a spreadsheet! I only saw it because I was curled up in my car, reading your book at the lake, and decided to check in. I have found a lot of solace and relatability in reading it. Right now I'm at around the 100 pg mark. I've been in and out of weeks long hospital stays myself for the last 8 years. I have Bipolar 1, and my life has been continually disrupted as well. I've been in hospital hallways with only patients and sterile looking environments for company. I've felt frustration or alienation from people treating me strangely through it. I find a lot of company in your words in this book. A lot of the phrases or little experiences you describe make me feel less alone in my own ventures through the hospital system, through the disability dynamic with my access to the world and perception from other people. I just want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to take your experience and turn it into words for us. I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like "Finally! Someone saying they've felt just like me!" when they read it. I heard your voice on NPR, and it reminded me of me in recovery right now, overcoming another restart to my life and turning it into positive work to overcome the fear and the upturning. I'm really proud of you, and, let me tell you, I've done the same things to cope with the tiny environments that hospital rooms are! It's the best! I love the bird art! My favorite piece of art is a framed head portrait of me a fellow patient drew with red, orange, purple, and yellow crayon on a big piece of sketch paper while I sat in the rare sunbeam that hit the end of one of our unit halls through the window above the air conditioner, eyes closed, world drowned out, at peace. I hope your art and cozy blanket does you good.