Persona

Provincetown is now a memory, but I have 150-pages, enough to say I have more than a backbone for my new novel. Now if only, if only, I can keep a little of that momentum and continue to make progress, however small, thoughout the school year.

The first week of Fall semester is over, and with it a flurry of activity: meeting new classes, preparing talking notes, and working on a teaching portfolio due to the college on September 2.

Working on talking notes for Walt Whitman during this long weekend, I have been thinking again about how writers create a persona in order to tell their stories (or write their poems). The longer I write, the more I come to understand this process of donning the mask.

It is quite a paradox that someone like me, who values authenticity to an extreme, should find herself putting on masks and telling "lies."

When I was at Provincetown, I went to a library book sale and found a great old book by Sherwood Anderson called Tar. It is a beautiful old book, published in 1928. In the introduction to Tar, Anderson wrote of how he had sat down to tell his autobiography but found it quite impossible until he had created a fictional character (Tar) through which to stage his utterance. He called his process "an old writer's trick." It is very old, indeed.

In Latin, persona means mask. It refers to the mask worn by actors in ancient theater. But the true origin of persona is in archaic rituals; it is related to archaic religion. The Iroquois had a healing ritual involving masks. They believed that if you saw a demon in a dream, you had to carve a likeness of the demon and wear the likeness as a mask. The mask gave the dreamers power over their ordeal and also the power to cure others.

When Walt Whitman says, "I depart as air," he doesn't just speak of the wind or to the wind, he becomes the wind. And he then steals the primitive power of the wind for himself. When he says, "I am untranslatable, / I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" he partakes--becomes one with--the primal world. And when he says, "You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, / But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood" he travels through our veins and is pumped by our hearts. We become strong and aware like he was--we take on his qualities--because we drink his words as Siegfried drank the blood of the dragon he slayed. Adopting a persona has a quality of animism.

Whitman's persona of the oracle is brilliant. He can be anything or anyone; he contains multitudes; he cuts through time and becomes part of what is eternal.

I think the adopting of a persona is the hardest thing for writers to learn. It means creating a second-self.

The persona, of course, does not need to be a demon. It can be an angel; it can be an oracle (as in the case of Whitman); it can be a serial-killer; it can be a little child; it can be an inanimate object. The point is, it cannot be you.

Your psyche will always keep the deepest part of your real self hidden. But you can imagine the deepest part of a second-self; or the second-self can help you to unearth the some parts of yourself that you characteristically hide. And you can reveal those things safely from behind the mask.

Creating a persona is an exercize in magical thinking. It is very hard to discover how to do it; it is a mysterious process. But until the process is mastered, our works will not be everything they can be.

If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves a key,
The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

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Allen arrived in Provincetown this afternoon, and we spent the day enjoying the town, walking and sitting on the beach with the dogs. We have just a couple more days. Soon it will be time to load the truck and head back to Ohio.

When I came to the lab to check my e-mail, I learned that Philip F. O'Connor, my mentor when I was in the MFA program at BGSU has died. He was the most generous teacher I ever had. He was a big man with a big soul. When your story came up for workshop, he could put you on cloud nine or leave you quaking in your boots. But you never lost sight that what you were doing was special and important.

Rest in Peace, Phil.

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"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall"

This one was so much fun to do. It came together after I found the card for the "The Paper Fool." I guess fairy tales were on my mind because I'll be teaching a course on fairy tales this fall. I also had been reading in The Golden Bough about the symbolism of mirrors.

This is my last week at Provincetown! On the 25th classes start and I am back to my other life. It has been productive, and it has been a blast.

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Taste, O Taste and See

I like to tell a story with my collages. The collages give me a chance to use visual symbolism freely. The great thing about a collage is that the onlooker can create his or her own story.

My new journal is filling quickly. I have ordered some good watercolor paper and plan to hand-stitch my next journal.

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Prayer

Another letter from Allen today. He knows me. His letter encouraged me to step out of my dream world for a while and take in the world through my senses. So I went for a very long walk, all the way out to the rock jetty. It was the first time I'd walked that far. I came back and did this collage to honor the letter. He reminded me of how wonderful this place is and how much I will miss it. But he stressed:

"You are there now! Dig your hands into the sand. Feel that water. Reach out and touch buildings, stone walls, even the ground you walk on. Close your eyes. What do you feel?"

He reminded me: "Your heart will long for these things."

I wrote these words on the collage, as well as some Buddhist sayings: "My true religion is kindness," and "Test all things for yourself." I also included the idea that the span of a human life is "one breath." I love this idea: to be mindful with each breath that you are alive. To live an entire lifetime within the span of that breath. And then to do it again. And again. And again.

The moon is out here in Provincetown tonight. It is the same moon that is above you right now. We are looking at the same moon.

Good-night.