I don’t know if anyone besides me does this, but I read particular books in particular seasons. For instance at the first break of Spring, I read Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar. In the dead of Winter, I like All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque). In Summer, when I can’t sleep because it’s too hot, I read Altered States by Paddy Chayefsky.
Fall is very special to me, though. October is my birth month, I love crisp weather, I can’t get enough of the smell of leaves and Halloween is easily in the running for being my favorite holiday. Unlike many people I know, I find Fall (rather than Spring) to be a time of renewal in the sense that you know you’re going to be enjoying its beauty and that beauty will make you introspective enough to really examine your motives so that you can live with the isolation of your own company through the Winter months. Am I making sense? In case I’m not, I’ll get a little closer to the point.
At the end of September / beginning of October, I read my very favorite book by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita. I came across this book accidentally in the fall of 2008. I had just moved to downtown Baltimore, I didn’t have any money and I had a lot of time on my hands. It was my roommate’s and it was lying around our apartment and I just happened to pick it up just as the weather started getting crisp. I don’t know if it was the weather or my situation at the time or the fact that I may or may not have been drinking a lot of vodka and chain-smoking a lot on the steps of my building, but that book was life altering for me and now I read it every fall. My favorite quote in it takes place when Jesus Christ is explaining to Pontius Pilate that, “to speak the truth is easy and pleasant.” Please take my advice and read the book and the quote will make more sense, but for now, that’s not necessarily the point either.
I just recently started my annual reading of The Master and Margarita and on a whim, I decided to read the translator’s introduction, in which she explains that Bulgakov was a gifted satirist writing satire in Russia in the 1920’s. Russia in the 1920’s was not a good place to be writing satire and needless to say, Bulgakov was slighted, stunted, hindered, discouraged and all but literally broken of his passion for the written word and observation of his world. He knew where his passion was, though, and in a very (almost stupidly) bold move, he wrote a letter to Stalin demanding to either be deported or assigned to a job in either literature or theater. As a result of this bold act, he spent the majority of his last decade alive in Theater. He didn’t get to see much of his writing published or enjoyed during his lifetime, but he never stopped writing and he insisted upon either remaining close to his passion or permitted to leave his home so that he could pursue that passion. Very Russian lit, I know, but stay with me.
All that being said, sometimes I’m not sure I’m that dedicated of a writer. For instance, I get two days before these deadlines and I have no idea what I’m going to say. So, inevitably and only half-jokingly, I make a post on facebook. Something to the effect of, “I need to write a column in the next two days. Throw me a bone, Muse.” The first answer came from my dear friend, Mike, who suggested the following topic: “Weighted nymphs seem like cheating to me. A good seven or eight weight shooting taper with a sink tip well presented upstream would keep the fly more natural in the proper hands and should elicit a strike from the most wary steelhead.” Of course, the only thing I understood about this was that Mike was talking about fishing and that Mike loves to fish. When Mike wakes up in the morning, he is a hunter and a fisherman. Possibly before he is, does or interacts with anything else, he is a hunter and a fisherman. He had to know I was probably not going to address whether weighted nymphs are a cheat move when going after trout, but he couldn’t help it. Mike wakes up Mike. A fisherman, hunter and smart ass.
The second answer I got came from my friend, Nate. He and I have been friends for years and years. We grew up together and we are usually those smug two in the corner making fun of everyone else. His answer was to write about, “Halloween as a moment of change and self-actualization.” He was a philosophy major and he is now in his first year of law school. When he wakes up in the morning, he thrives on understanding and mastering the art of human interaction. He can’t help it. Just as, I’m sure, he couldn’t help but state that I may, “submit his royalty check whenever I please.” Do you see where I’m going with this? No? Okay, one more example.
I got a third answer from my Aunt Traci who suggested that I write about the interaction between older and younger generations, their perceptions of one another and whether these perceptions are accurate. My Aunt Traci has many passions in life, but the most obvious of these to me is the passion that she has for raising and interacting with her children. She can’t help that. Her first reaction when I asked for a noteworthy topic was to suggest the interaction between generations and finding points of communication or even dissonance. This is who she is when she wakes up.
People always talk about a refusal to compromise as if it is a skill that is learned or a fashion that can be worn. I wonder if maybe a refusal to compromise regarding one’s passions in life isn’t simply an inability to compromise because it would contradict the essences of our respective selves. When you wake up in the morning, before you are anything else, what are you?
See what I mean about fall being a time of renewal? When I woke up this morning, I had no idea what to write about. So I acknowledged my passion without even thinking about it. I acknowledged and was able to then pay a little tribute to the interconnection between all of us. Mikhail was very right. To speak the truth, whether or not you know you’re doing it, really is easy and pleasant.
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