Tag: rhythm

Finding the Rhythm

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“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

On my first mountain climbing attempt, a guided climb of Mt. Rainier in the summer of 1998, the lead guide introduced us to the poetry of Robert Service. Whether you or not you like his poetry, he delivers a cadence that I found helpful in keeping a climbing rhythm:

“There’s a race of man who won’t give in
A race that can’t stand still.
So they break the heart of kith and kin
And roam the world at will.”

The Men Who Don’t Fit In by Robert Service

Climbing depends on a steady pace. If you go too fast when roped to your teammates, you create too much slack ahead, and end up pulling the climber behind. If you go too slow, you create drag on someone else. When climbs would get tough, I’d recite the poems in my head and it would regulate my head, heart, and feet.

Thought I don’t climb any more, I still find evidence of pacing in all of the rest of my life. At work, knowing the cadence of team meetings helps to know when we can address issues. At home, rhythm is such a large part of how my little family stays stable. The waking up, eating breakfast, packing lunches, off to school rhythm is the cornerstone of our weekdays. When we get out of sync, it’s like a band that’s lost the beat.

Miss O recently learned to play Ode to Joy on the piano. When feeling like she wants to show off her mastery, she plays it somewhere between double and triple time. Played like that, it quickly becomes Ode to Indigestion.

I’m thinking of all these examples of rhythm and cadence because of an incredible podcast conversation that Vicki and I had with Edgerton award winning playwright, Jack Canfora. As a playwright and trained Shakespearean actor, he thinks a lot about cadence in writing. But for him, it extends beyond the theater. It applies to humor writing and essays as well.

Jack describes himself as a rhythmic writer. I’m thinking of You Make a Mean Salad as an example of his writing and humor. Or perhaps it’s best heard in a play. Step 9 is available as a theatrical podcast.

Thinking of my own writing as someone who tends to extended sentences, I have a lot to learn about calibrating sentences from Jack. Here’s a clip from our podcast where he talks about how Shakespeare balances sentences.

If you’re in the mood for a podcast, listen to this one. It’s got a great rhythm: Episode 56: Master Class In Creativity with Jack Canfora – Part II or search for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon Music, Spotify or Pocketcasts.

Links for this Podcast episode:

Jack’s website: Jack Canfora | Playwright | Podcaster | Writing Coach

Jack’s Online Theater Company: New Normal Rep

Jericho by Jack Canfora on Amazon

Jack Canfora on Instagram and Twitter: @jackcanfora

Other podcast episodes featuring Jack:

Episode 4: Why Theater Matters

Episode 55: Master Class in Creativity with Jack Canfora – Part I

From the hosts:

Vicki’s personal blog: Victoria Ponders

Wynne’s personal blog: Surprised by Joy

Vicki’s recently released book: Surviving Sue

Wynne’s book about her beloved father: Finding My Father’s Faith

(featured photo from Pexels)

Finding My Stride

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“Song is not a luxury, but a necessary way of being in the world.” – Mark Nepo

This first mountain guide that I ever climbed with recited poetry. Not while we climbed but during breaks and when we were all gathered in the evening around the camp stove drinking hot drinks. I was not quite 30-years-old and eager to learn everything I could about climbing so the poetry stuck. And the rhythm of it while I climbed was so helpful when roped to others. Go too fast and the rope bunches up and makes it harder to avoid stepping on it. Go too slow and you tug on the person in front of you, throwing them off balance. High up on the mountain where the oxygen is thinner, the breath harder to catch, having a rhythm stuck in your head to move to works. The guide favored Robert Service poetry and I can still recite it, maybe even use it to find my internal rhythm in moments:

There’s a race of men who don’t fit in,

A race that can’t stand still.

So they break the hearts of kith and kin,

A roam the world at will.

I’ve been thinking about stride a lot lately because I’m having trouble finding mine. Three weeks into getting my toddler into the rhythm of preschool, there was a teacher in-service day and school was cancelled. Now my 5-year-old is going to go to in-person Kindergarten for the first time starting in April but they are cancelling all remote classes for 3 days to prepare. And changing the start time for everyone, even the kids that are staying remote. And once they’ve been back to school for one week, then we are taking a week off for Spring Break. I totally get that starting back up a big school district is a huge task and acknowledge that they need to take the time. I’m just trying to figure out how to get my work done amidst the turbulence. This moment of re-entry, obstacles and challenges feels like the upper reaches of a mountain. My little family is like a roped-up team. It’s hard work and I feel like I can’t find my stride and it’s hard to breathe.

I’ve had plenty of moments in the mountains when I couldn’t find my stride either. And like with what I’m feeling right now, one of the biggest reasons is low-level worry and complaints like I’m tired, it’s windy, what are the tough conditions we’ll face ahead? But my time on mountains has taught me that I can take one step at a time until I find my stride. If I can replace the worry and complaints with a song, a mantra or a poem, I start loosening up and flowing again.

So I’m channeling my inner mountain guide as I meditate in the morning of these weeks knowing that if I can find my rhythm, I make it easier for all those on my rope team. Because we are all tied together and we’ll get to where we are going and face our obstacles as a team. I’d rather do that singing than worrying, dancing through one step at a time.