Singing in the Storm

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

This past week, Patrick and I concluded our summer session of the Patrick Page Acting Studio.

We spent time with over 60 students who came together to work on their craft and grow together as artists.

The question I return to over and over again—one I’ve asked for the past ten years in these studios—is this: What is the role of art?

Recently, I came across a quote from the novelist Anne Lamott that I saved and keep returning to:

Sometimes my life feels like a terrible storm—I imagine you’ve felt that, too.

And so, I believe there’s something essential about learning to be more exact, or finding a way to sing that changes the hearts and spirits of others.

Whether you're an artist or not, there’s something noble in that attempt.

And I sit in awe of these students who dare to try.

Who show up, again and again.

Who sing, even in the storm.

A POEM

“The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart” by Jack Gilbert

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.

Grateful,

Michael