Staining Silence

...nothing matters but the writing. There has been nothing else worthwhile. I couldn't have done it otherwise. Gone on, I mean. I could not have gone through the awful wretched mess of life without having left a stain upon the silence

Samuel Beckett

I wanted to end this series of blogs with an entry on writing. I remembered reading something that Beckett had said about writing being as stain upon the silence. I had jotted the quote down somewhere. But, of course, when I needed it I couldn’t find it. It’s probably in some journal, or perhaps my book of quotations. So I did what we all do these days—googled it (funny isn’t it that “google” has now become a verb; interesting too how we accept neologism so calmly these days).

For Beckett, nothing mattered but his writing. As I think about this I wonder about our desire to write. And if writing is a stain upon the silence does that mean that in the end our words attenuate into an ephemeral rendition of themselves that is nothing more than a sound—a silence? Or whether writing imbues silence with a sound? And is that good or bad?

Can one write a silence or is it something within, felt but not expressed? I have only questions about writing today. And no answers. I also wonder about solace in writing. Sometime the solace of writing is noisy with the frustration at my inability to express myself, to write myself. Other time I think there is no greater solace than writing. I like solitude, I like silence. Even as I write this, the loudest sound is that of my thoughts, punctuated by the background whir of appliances in the house. Outside too it’s quiet; trees hushed under drapes of snow that hangs from branches and threatens to shatter the silence with a soft thud to the ground. I sit enfolded within a white silence of snow and thoughts.

But the silence within me is never still. Always alive with thoughts and feelings. Rereading Beckett’s words I wonder if pure silence is ever possible. I believe that as humans we can’t accept pure silence, our goal seems to be to stain it, fill it out with words. I wonder if Beckett felt that his writing had stained silence, marred it, made it impure. I don’t know. I have only read a bit of Beckett, some plays and a short biography (also seen a couple of the plays), so I can’t comment on his intentions, or motives, or how the quote above might fit into his philosophy or thinking about anything—writing, life, death, other existential questions that occupied him.

Did Beckett value contemplation more than the outpourings of that contemplation? I hope not. I can’t imagine a world without writing to define the margins of our lives, to render into words our emotions, to make us lose ourselves in other lives, places, and events. What I do know is that writers such as Beckett helped us know what it is to be alive. And I am glad for the stains he and others like him have put on silence through their words. I am thankful that the stain Beckett left is indelible, that it will linger for a long time. I am sure that future generations will no doubt be grateful for his marring of silence.

Assaying/Essaying: The Knife

I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing up a few things by hand because the dishwasher was full. We were expecting people for dinner and I wanted to tidy up the kitchen before anyone arrived. I thought about what I should write for the last two blogs…. my mind began to wander. I reflected on how we write, how our mind leaps from thought to thought in quick fire succession, attempts to make connections, tries to put them in some order and searches for some meaning or sense amid that onslaught of ideas. But more often that not the thoughts refuse to adhere to any pattern, make little sense, and only sow confusions. Exhausted the mind pushes them in some far recess, refuses to acknowledge them, and lets them pile up and smother themselves under their own weight.

I continued washing and thinking about “essaying.” Then I picked up a knife; its blade crusted with dried cheese. A so-so knife seldom used. Nondescript. Plastic handle chipped and yellowed with age; flimsy, short blade slightly curved at the base. It’s old—from sometime in the early 1970s. No one would give this knife more than a passing glance. Wouldn’t know its history, or that it has any memories, any stories associated with it. When I began thinking of it, I realized that that little implement had essaying possibilities. It’s not just a knife; it’s a slice of my life.

I don’t think of him—my first husband—often anymore, only sometime when I use that knife. He is not a regular part of my remembrances of things or people past. The knife is one of the few things—apart from some fading, crumpled photos—of our eight years together. But I am not even sure when the knife entered our lives, my life. Maybe we got it because we bought a certain amount of gas at a filling station in South Dakota, or Minnesota, or maybe on a long drive to New York from Minneapolis, or some other road trip; maybe it was in exchange for those green S&H stamps still popular, I can’t place it. None of those places evoke a memory—good or bad. All I know is that the knife somehow ended up in my possession after our separation and eventual divorce, years after we’d left the Midwest and moved to Alaska. To Barrow.

Sometime, holding that knife I get a momentary of being somewhere with that first husband. Usually fleeting, vague memories of stopping on a long drive to stretch our legs; top off the gas tank. The only thing I am certain of getting at one such stop was an ice scream scoop—a utilitarian piece of dull metal with a heft that helps in chiseling ice cream hardened in the freezer. I ended up with that too.

Why do I keep these old pieces of a relationship that shattered long ago? I don’t know. Maybe there is underlying fear that getting rid of them is tantamount to discarding a part of my life; or perhaps it’s simply accepting life’s failures as well as its triumphs. And recognizing that once someone has been a part of one’s life, it’s not easy to get rid of every last vestige of that person. So it is with my first husband, he was once important to me. He is not anymore. But those the years I spent with him are part of my life and am important one too (I am proud I didn’t say “wasted with him”). With time, the bad parts of that relationship lose their rawness. I no longer obsess about the pain I suffered, it’s still there, but it’s not as sharp—much like that little knife I still have.

That knife is pretty useless now, but it still sits in a slot in one of my cutlery blocks. That is how it’s with thoughts of my first husband too. He is no more than a smudge of memory, sequestered in a corner of my mind. I think of him now without getting upset, and I can even write these words equanimity, without any pain, regrets, guilt or anger. He is fading, but will never entirely disappear. That’s okay too. Today, I can’t call up his face when I recall him, and I can barely remember the incisive gaze of his emerald eyes that lured me once into a relationship tempestuous and somewhat immature. I made a mistake. I learned to live with it. Maybe I keep the knife to remind me that everyone is allowed some mistakes in life. But we carry on.

But just now one memory associated with the knife, a pleasing one, emerged. It’s a late summer afternoon on a lake in northern Minnesota, a flash of gold beside the canoe. I grab the net, he reels in the walleye, flips it into the net. We paddle back to the campsite. I take the little knife, swipe it on a whetstone, and slice up a couple of potatoes; next to me he cleans the fish with a larger, sturdier knife; fillets it. Our dinner. Delicious.

So, my "essaying" sometime starts with a random thought. The possibilities for essaying multiply when I don't control the thought, but rather follow its peregrinations and see where they lead. And, now I have an idea about an essay (I think). About a topic still unexplored. No. Not the knife; but the ex-husband, and those days of rebellion and doing as I pleased. I don't know where it'll go from here, but I'll try. Maybe the idea will burn out before I am able to wrest any meaning from it. But that's for me to find out.