bliss

Outside of Time

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

For work reasons, I’m often driving these days on a backroad in Greensboro, Vermont — a wooded stretch of dirt road with few houses. At a particular place, I always remember the August day when I was driving along with a friend, our two five-year-olds in the backseat. The five-year-olds were likely conspiring or arguing. We were driving home from a circus performance in a tent in a large hayfield.

My friend got out of the car and ran off the road with her camera. She wanted to photograph some giant flowers in the woods. Were they Giant Hogweed? Cow Parsnip? She took her time while I stayed with the five-year-olds. The kids were buckled in, and we weren’t letting them out.

Oh, August. Memories upon memories. Who wants to remember January with its endless days of 20 below zero? But August? Somehow, in these days, we’re always young parents, with that enthusiasm for enormous wildflowers and all the time in the world to take photos — at least for these few, gorgeously shimmering days.

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Photo by Gabriela S.

Morning Notes

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / 4 Comments

An August Sunday list with the daughter:

  • put up dill pickles
  • can peaches
  • write questions for tomorrow’s interview
  • pick blackberries
  • pluck Japanese beetles from the bean vines and feed this salad to the hens
  • bake a tart in the pan found yesterday in a free pile
  • wander somewhere unknown

The screened door slamming tells me it is summer…

— David Budbill, “The Sound of Summer”

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Follow Your Bliss

/ Brett Ann Stanciu / Leave a comment

When I was in graduate school, a popular bumper sticker read Follow Your Bliss. That Joseph Campbell line has followed me for years, and it’s only now, in my forties, that I realize I terribly misunderstood this line. I was hung up on the notion of bliss as a static state, this misguided notion that happiness is something you might be able to square off and define, that happiness might be a finite destination.

Follow Your Bliss seemed to imply a life of milk and honey, where children are always chubby-cheeked and houses never burn down. When I read Campbell, I didn’t stop to realize that doors opening also means there are times when every door appears slammed shut, and the way out impassable. I think now I would rewrite this line to Work hard, have faith, and laugh. Keep your eyes savvy and don’t forget to stretch your hands out for others. All that’s in Campbell, slow learner that I am.

If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.

A bit of advice
Given to a young Native American
At the time of his initiation:
As you go the way of life,
You will see a great chasm. Jump.
It is not as wide as you think.

– Joseph Campbell

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Photo by Molly S./Hazen Union parking lot, early morning