In waves: writing upon writing

How quiet I've been. Just working on the project -- which has a new working title, Thank You for Being (etc). The mind wants to be quiet, as well, at least around the edges of writing -- which, frankly, is... most of the time. As Michael Gottlieb notes in his essential little book, What We Do: Essays for Poets (quoting Max Beerbohm): "the only problem with being a poet is figuring out what to do with the other twenty-three hours of the day." In these "other" hours, it is better for the mind to be absorbed in the rest of whatever is going on:  emptying dishwasher, checking chickens, hugging partner, gratifying cats. Vacuuming (a terrifying word, if you really think about it). Staring out second-floor window onto the bright grass, leaves of the dogwood below starting to turn, angle of the light already sharpened in that autumnal way that brings such delight (even if it it signals -- especially on this date -- a turn toward the dark. For a while... ). But the mind,...

  Her past seemed to be rising above her present. And for some reason she wanted to talk about her past; to tell them something about herself that she had never told anybody -- something hidden.  This describes a moment within Rose Pargiter, a character in Virgina Woolf's novel, The Years .  But this mental gesture also belongs to me, as so many bits and pieces of narrative and internal monologue in this novel refract and resemble moments of experience, thought patterns in my own mind. She paused, gazing at the flowers in the middle of the table without seeing them. There was a blue knot in the yellow glaze she noticed. The above moment belongs solely to Rose.  And soon, after an interaction with a much younger woman, Rose finds herself in frustration: What is the use, she thought, of trying to tell people about one's past?  And that is something I can mouth, word-for-word, because there seems to be a uselessness to a project like mine, which I am nonetheless su...