That Kind of Winter

It’s a funny thing. I say I’m going to write letters, and I actually do write a few, then, soon enough, my letter-writing degenerates into postcards and poems. It’s been that kind of winter — that kind of life. You, there, cozy on your couch; you, hunched and bunched at your desk; you, with your laptop, tablet, and phone — don’t think I’m not mindful of my promise, or my threat, if not to be witty or wise, to at least remain in touch.

The truth is, until yesterday, I had all but given up on the idea of writing again. Publicly, I mean. I have nothing new to say. As I related, or tried to relate, in yesterday’s poem, I’m the same child I’ve always been. It was the sudden realization of this that drove me to the keyboard. The same child, yes; the same nameless, timeless spirit, the same expression of awareness that is the very ground of life itself — it’s all still here. And just as I’ve been losing my hair, I’ve been losing everything that keeps this simple, sublime fact obscured from me. That kind of winter. That kind of life.

I’ve read some wonderful books. I finished the two-volume life of Tennyson, which was inspiring from beginning to end. Just a few days ago, I finished John Adams, by David McCullough, another book I highly recommend. Now I’m reading the two-volume Library of America edition of John Quincy Adams’s diary, which he began at the age of twelve and kept up for the rest of his long, eventful life. I just started Peter Ackroyd’s Shakespeare, and that, too, is excellent. I’ve learned more about the great dramatist and his times in the first eighty pages than I’ve gleaned in a lifetime. I finished A Private Life of Henry James, and a few others I can’t remember at the moment.

I wrote in my own notebook, the antique leather journal I mentioned a few letters ago. My printing has improved quite a lot. Now I can also read what I write. This, for instance:

One of the most inspiring things I can think of is that I came into this world without a name; indeed, it was not until I had lived three days that I was given one — this, according to my mother.

A living being without a name, and who had as yet given no name to anything within his experience.

In other words, a life of pure being.

Is it any wonder that we derive so much joy from being in the presence of a newborn?

A baby is a reminder of what we have lost — but not truly lost; our pure being is only obscured. This is what we unconsciously seek, through external objective means — as if bliss is something we can add to ourselves, when the truth is, it is ourselves to begin with.

Little by little, through daily well-intentioned reinforcement, I became my name — I learned to identify with it. And I learned to name, and whatever I named, became that name, obscuring for me its essential nature, which was one and the same with mine.

Little by little, the world grew smaller. And the smaller it grew, the more frightening it became.

In the beginning, life was one harmonious movement. There were no boundaries.

As soon reach for a bird or star as my mother’s nose.

In truth, nothing in and of itself has a name. No person, no tree, no star, no bird. The universe has no name, nor any need of one.

Come, nameless one, dwell with me in a place where there are no names.

Namelessness is our true essence. Naming creates the illusion that we are separate, and that everything within our ken is separate, which is simply not so.

That kind of winter. That kind of life. And now our apricot tree is breaking into bloom. It is a postcard and a poem. But there is really no need to name it so.

[ 1940 ]