(No, not the Marilynne Robinson novel Housekeeping, though let’s talk about that soon, too.)
Ordinarily I will post here about once a week. For launch week, it seems good to set out some intentions and parameters for what this little publication intends to be.
Dream time
Realists or otherwise, sometimes we all indulge in a little wishful thinking: If barriers of time, space, cost, and practicality all vanished at once, what would we choose to do with ourselves? Left to the mercy of impulse, I’d teleport instantly to some glittering city and begin hosting a literary salon there. Nights, we’d sit up late, talking our way to truth, beauty, and goodness; in the daytime, we’d write the texts our descendents’ schools would still be studying two hundred and fifty years from now.
(Naturally, the children are in on this dream too. But in this version of reality they spend their mornings learning from expert tutors, their afternoons frolicking in city parks, and their evenings enjoying perfect dinners and splendid music and going to bed precisely on time: and if that isn’t wishful thinking, I don’t know what is.)
But since distance, expense, and these sometimes inconvenient bodies are (probably) not vanishing anytime soon, this space is probably the second closest we can get to our imaginary salon, for now. As such, I can’t say enough how grateful I am that you’ve chosen to join me in this space, where I hope we’ll have a lively, ongoing conversation about the questions that interest us all.
Working plans
For my part, here is what I hope to do:
Shorter essays, as from a beginner, on what I mean by “contemplation,” and practices I find conducive to its pursuit
Longer essays, because I have more competence and more to say here, on the art of fiction as it relates to contemplative realism
A “Forerunners” series: short articles on authors, artists, auteurs, etc. who seem to me to already practice or embody certain aspects of contemplative realism
An “In Real Time” series: short peeks at the behind-the-scenes context in which these posts are being written, which may at times consist of no more than a photograph
A series of invited guest posts on topics of common interest for contemplative realists
The plan is to post on Wednesdays, with occasional extra content.
A little bonus realism
With regard to comment policy, response time, etc.:
Those of you who know me face to face may have already heard me say that I correspond on the Rilke plan. Poet Rainer Maria Rilke was notorious for taking many months to respond to a letter, which was a long time even back when long response times were socially quite normal. We don’t need to wait months or write by hand—unless we wish—but perhaps we can transliterate the Rilke plan into the digital age.
Except when sharing in time-sensitive remote work, I feel it should be considered more than reasonable to take a week or two to respond to a thoughtful email, days to respond to a DM or comment, hours (maybe days) to respond to a text … I would rather offer you substantive, sustained thought than reactions fired off in a moment of hot emotion and, all too often, regretted later. I refuse to normalize this danse macabre of provocation and reaction and regret (which, still, let’s face it, probably happened in the real-world salons all the time; it’s hard to read Balzac, for example, and continue to imagine otherwise).
So, please know that while I am always tremendously pleased to hear from you, here on the ground I am running a complicated practical life. A long response time from me doesn’t mean whatever negative thought or feeling you may be attributing to it, possibly from a past stressful experience online (and don’t we all have stories to tell there). It means that, while we think together from a distance, life goes on. And life is asking a lot from all of us, these days, so let’s be kind to one another.
Again, I’m so happy you’re here and am looking forward to beholding reality together with you.