Natalie Goldberg - Wild Mind: Living the Writers Life

ALSO BY NATALIE GOLDBERG

Writing Down the Bones

Wild Mind

Lang Quiet Highway

Banana Rose

Living Color

RIDER LONDON-SYDNEY AUCKLAND JOHANNESBURG

Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right inthe middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce. Insummer, we work hard to make a tidy garden, bordered by pansies with rows orclumps of columbine, petunias, bleeding hearts. Then we find ourselves longingfor the forest, where everything has the appearance of disorder; yet, we feelpeaceful there.

What writing practice, like Zen practice, does is bring you back to thenatural state of mind, the wilderness of your mind where there are no refinedrows of gladiolas. The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It doesnot think in the way we were brought up to thinkwell-mannered, congenial.

When I finished Writing Down the Bones and people in my workshopsread it, I thought I would not have to say anything else. I felt embarrassed tosay, "Steve, you ought to be more specific there." I thought he wouldretort, "We know. You already told us in chapter eight." I thought Iwould be redundant, but reading a book about writing is different from actuallygetting down and doing writing. I was naive. I should have remembered thatafter I read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, I was still afraid to die.

A book about writing isn't enough. Being a writer is a whole way of life, away of seeing, thinking, being. It's the passing on of a lineage. Writers handon what they know. Most of what I learned about Zen was transmitted to methrough being in the presence of Katagiri Roshi, the Zen master with whom Istudied.

I will give you an example. I had just moved to Minneapolis and I wanted tostudy Buddhism. Before I moved there, I lived in Boulder and studied with aTibetan teacher. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance in this Tibetantradition. It was a big center; we had to wait several months to have aninterview with the teacher and we dressed up to see him.

In Minneapolis, I called the Zen center and asked if I could schedule aninterview with the Zen master there. The man on the other end of the phone hada heavy Japanese accent. He told me to come right over. I realized he was theZen master. I dressed up and ran over. Katagiri Roshi came down the stairs injeans and a green T-shirt that said Marcy School Is Purr-feet. There was apicture of a cat on the T-shirt. His younger son went to Marcy ElementarySchool. We talked for ten minutes. It was very ordinary. I left, unimpressed.

About a month later, someone called from the Zen newsletter staff, asking meif I would interview Roshi for the fall issue. I said yes. The morning of theinterview, I woke up obsessed with the problem of what color material I shouldbuy for curtains. This was 1978 and I had just gotten married. I drove to theZen center to interview Roshi with that curtain obsession blazing in my mind. Iplanned to get the interview over with and then rush to the fabric store.

I parked in front of the Zen center and dashed out of the car. I was a fewminutes late. I was halfway up the walk when I realized I'd left my notebook onthe front car seat. I dashed back to the car, grabbed the notebook and ran tothe back entrance of the Zen center. I flung open the door, spun around thecorner and came to a dead stop: Roshi was standing in the kitchen by the sinkin his black robes, watering a pink orchid. That orchid had been given to himthree weeks before. Someone had brought it from Hawaii for a Buddhist wedding Ihad attended. It was still fully alive.

"Roshi," I said in astonishment and pointed at the orchid.

"Yes." He turned and smiled. I felt the presence of every cell inhis body. "When you take care of something, it lives a long time."

That was the beginning of my true relationship with him. I learned a lotfrom Katagiri Roshi. I learned about my own ignorance, arrogance, stubbornness,also about kindness and compassion. I didn't learn these through criticism orpraise. He used neither. He was present with his life and he waited patientlyfor an eternity for me to become present with my life and to wake up.

Writers are not available for teaching in the way a Zen master is available.We can take a class from a writer but it is not enough. In class, we don't seehow a writer organizes her day or dreams up writing ideas. We sit in class andlearn what narrative is but we can't figure out how to do it. A doesnot lead to B. We can't make that kamikaze leap. So writing is alwaysover there in the novels on the shelves or discussed on class blackboards andwe are over here in our seats. I know many people who are aching to be writersand have no idea how to begin. There is a great gap like an open wound.

A successful lawyer in Santa Fe decided he wanted to be a writer. He quithis job and the next Monday he began a novel, cold turkey, page one. He'd neverwritten a word before that except for law briefs. He thought he could apply hislawyer's mind to his creative writing. He couldn't. Two years later, he wasstill struggling. I told him, "Bruce, you have to see the worlddifferently, move through it differently. You've entered a different path. Youcan't just leap into the lake of writing in a three-piece suit. You need adifferent outfit to swim in."

Cecil Dawkins, a fine Southern novelist, said to me in a slow drawl oneafternoon after she'd read Writing Down the Bones when it first cameout, "Why, Naa-da-lee, this book should be very successful. When you aredone with it, you know the author better. That's all a reader reallywants"she nodded her head"to know the author better. Even if it's anovel, they want to know the author."

Human isolation is terrible. We want to connect and figure out what it meansto write. "How do you live? What do you think?" we ask the author. Weall look for hints, stories, examples.

It is my hope that in sharing what I do, I have helped my readers along thewriting path.

For fifteen years now, at the beginning of every writing workshop, I haverepeated the rules for writing practice. So, I will repeat them again here. AndI want to say why I repeat them: Because they are the bottom line, thebeginning of all writing, the foundation of learning to trust your own mind.Trusting your own mind is essential for writing. Words come out of the mind.

And I believe in these rules. Perhaps I'm a little fanatical about them.

A friend, teasing me, said, "You act as if they are the rules to liveby, as though they apply to everything."

I smiled. "Okay, let's try it. Do they apply to sex?"

I stuck up my thumb for rule number one. "Keep your hand moving."I nodded yes.

Index finger, rule number two. "Be specific." I let out a yelp ofglee. It was working.

Finger number three. "Lose control." It was clear that sex andwriting were the same thing.

Then, number four. "Don't think," I said. 'tes, for sex, too, Inodded.

I proved my point. My friend and I laughed.

Go ahead, try these rules for tennis, hang gliding, driving a car, making agrilled cheese sandwich, disciplining a dog or a snake. Okay. They might notalways work. They work for writing. Try them.

1. Keep your hand moving. When you sit down to write, whether it'sfor ten minutes or an hour, once you begin, don't stop. If an atom bomb dropsat your feet eight minutes after you have begun and you were going to write forten minutes, don't budge. You'll go out writing.

What is the purpose of this? Most of the time when we write, we mix up theeditor and creator. Imagine your writing hand as the creator and the other handas the editor. Now bring your two hands together and lock your fingers. This iswhat happens when we write. The writing hand wants to write about what she didSaturday night: "I drank whiskey straight all night and stared at a man'sback across the bar. He was wearing a red T-shirt. I imagined him to have theface of Harry Belafonte. At three A.M., he finally turned my way and I spitinto the ashtray when I saw him. He had the face of a wet mongrel who had losthis teeth." The writing hand is three words into writing this firstsentence"I drank whiskey"when the other hand clenches her ringerstighter and the writing hand can't budge. The editor says to the creator,"Now, that's not nice, the whiskey and stuff. Don't let people know that.I have a better idea: 'Last night, I had a nice cup