In Praise of Being Stuck

The sky is gray and the leaves are wet from last night’s rain. I sit on the Temple porch, well wrapped against the coolness of the morning, but happy to be out here with the birds enjoying the soft leaves of the early spring.

It’s been over two months since I took up this practice of daily writing and this is my second morning of plein air writing. Yesterday a friend was kidding me about my dogged persistence and the pressure I have created for myself.

In her poem ‘Corners’, former United States Poet Laureate Kay Ryan begins:

All but saints
and hermits
mean to paint
themselves
toward an exit

leaving a
pleasant ocean
of azure or jonquil
ending neatly
at the doorsill.

But sometimes
something happens:

Though I am neither a saint nor a hermit, I have aspirations toward both and this daily writing practice has been a means to paint myself into a corner in order to discover something new.

Many years ago, I took a workshop with a well-know potter from Minnesota, Linda Christiansen. In her introductory remarks, as she was sitting in front of us effortlessly throwing a few mugs on the potter’s wheel to warm up, she asked us each to say a little about ourselves and our work in clay. But her request was very specific: “I’m not interested in what’s going well in your work, I’m interested in where you’re stuck.”

She went on to explain that these places where we are stuck, where we have run out of options, are the places where we have an opportunity to move into new territory, where we can go beyond the well-worn paths of habit and history.   The problem itself is the entry point into worlds of creativity and beauty.

In her poem, Kay Ryan cleverly speaks only of intention. ‘All but saints / and hermits / mean to paint themselves / toward an exit’. Of course, whatever our intention, we all find ourselves stuck. We may have had a good plan—for the project, for the day, for our lives—but it rarely goes the way we intended. We find ourselves again and again stuck. Beyond our careful intention to paint toward the doorsill, we find ourselves stuck in another corner.

From our small self-interested perspective, this is a problem. ‘I’m not getting what I want.’ ‘This isn’t what I signed up for.’ But we are all saints and hermits now, regardless of our intention. We are all stuck in this world of social distancing and collapsing economies. We are, each one, stuck in our houses or apartments without our usual escape routes. We are stuck in the middle of this pandemic with no clear doorsill to step back to ‘normal’—whatever that was.

So I’m writing again this morning. It’s always different and I’m learning to work with whatever arises. Even nothing arising turns out to be a trustworthy place to start.

Just this. Here is the doorway to the world of fullness.

Rumi also sings of this doorsill between worlds. He too invites us to wake up and enter right where we are.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
Where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
 

Personal Practice: Turn your attention toward an area of your current life in which your feel stuck. Describe it to yourself in detail. What is the situation? Who is involved? What is going on? What is the worst part of it? Notice what thoughts, images and feelings arise as you explore this intractable situation.

What if this isn’t a problem? What if this situation is a doorway inviting you to step beyond your ancient histories and old patterns into some new world? You don’t have to believe anything. Just wonder for a while. Notice what happens.