Writing from the Heart: Perception and perspective

Before my friend Richard retired from teaching at a fancy college, he was a consultant for a big firm where he worked with the top executives from a few of the Fortune 500 companies.

On the fourth day of his lecture, he would look out at his eager audience and say, How many of you have changed your seats since day one? A smattering of hands would go up, but mainly most admitted they had stayed in the seat they had taken on opening day. How, he would then say, will you make any changes in your company if you can’t even change your seats?

When the writing workshop meets in my studio, I sit in the same seat every week. The other day, with the help of one of my favorite muses, Plant Medicine (my code phrase before pot was legal), I did something I have never done before.

Like Goldilocks, when class was over and everyone was gone, I went from chair to chair, staying for a minute looking around, taking in the view, and then moving on to a new spot.

Next, I ambled out to the yard, which is full of random chairs for the writers and guests. I plopped myself down in a chair I had never sat in. I looked out into the meadow, and for the first time instead of being frustrated at how that huge truck had knocked holes in the stone wall, I saw shapes of hearts in the spaces.

Then onto another. I remembered how I came to own this huge comfy monstrosity of a thing. Four years ago, I was driving down to Menemsha with my 11-year-old grandson and saw it on the side of the road. When we pulled over to inspect whether it was worthy, I knew immediately I wanted it. I also knew there was no way I could lift it. I said, Honey, it’s too heavy. Well, he found a way, and he got it into my trunk, and we drove right back home. And to this day there it sits.

I sat myself down into its welcoming arms, and now I wonder why I don’t have my morning coffee in this spot every summer day.

Once I started changing my seats, I couldn’t stop marveling over all the stories they held, both the ones associated with how I got the actual physical chair, and the ones where the writers had been.

I looked around and saw five of those vintage … (I think they were called Griffith metal chairs). My husband had painted them forest green 25 years ago, but shortly after, they had started to peel. When he offered to repaint them, I had said that I liked the way they looked and just to leave them.

Then when Midnight Farm, one of the fancy-schmancy stores on the Vineyard, opened, they called that look “shabby chic.” And here people thought we were funky folks. Clearly I was ahead of my time.

I kept my experiment going, and bopped around from seat to seat, each time seeing a brand-new tableau. At one point my eyes landed on the mass of black-eyed Susans growing in the side garden. The yellow of these happy flowers had been bothering me all summer because I didn’t like pulling into the driveway and seeing them with the pink hydrangeas. Don’t ask me why I don’t like pink and yellow together. (I never had any trouble with the pink and yellow marshmallow candy Peeps at Eastertime). But for flowers, that combo was a no-no. However, sitting here in this new spot, I could see only the yellow, with the light pink dappled willow, and it took my breath away.

I kept changing chairs and, surprise surprise, seeing new things.

Suddenly it reminded me of the time over 10 years ago when I was with my friend Gerry at the Cape Cod National Seashore on a blustery early November morning. The ocean was navy blue with white caps, and there were these Winslow Homer puffy clouds, and the sand looked like Bermuda powder. Just as I was about to say OMG did you ever see anything so beautiful, out of my peripheral vision way down on the beach I spotted two ugly plastic pink umbrellas, and I moaned and complained, and said, “Ucch, those dayglo things just ruined everything.” And my wise friend said (and here I have to quote because it’s one of those lines you’re gonna want), he said, “Freedom is the time between your perception and your opinion.”

Well, there you have it. By now you know this whole chair-jumping thing was about perspective and perception, and my narrow opinions about how I think things should be.

I don’t know how many more times I need this lesson.

Tune in. You already know I’m a slow learner.