{"id":532,"date":"2011-06-13T23:53:19","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T03:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beginnersheart\/?p=532"},"modified":"2011-06-15T23:35:32","modified_gmt":"2011-06-16T03:35:32","slug":"the-rucksack-of-my-aesthetic-whatever-that-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2011\/06\/the-rucksack-of-my-aesthetic-whatever-that-is.html","title":{"rendered":"‘the rucksack of my \u00e6sthetic’ (whatever that is…)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This was my father’s rucksack in WWII. It was found in a barn a couple of years ago, in France. I have no idea how it got there, other than Daddy fought in France. Nor what was in it when it was discovered. If anything ~<\/p>\n

When we were notified it had come to light, my sister (the one who was a lifer in the Army, like Daddy) okayed having it put in a nearby museum, if the museum wanted it. Which is wonderful — I’m a keen museum lover :).<\/p>\n

But I wonder what it contained. Had Daddy scribbled some note on a scrap of paper, as he often did? Was there a dog-eared book of Kipling’s poetry (his favourite, because Kipling knew about battle)? Or some other treasure of no value to anyone but his four daughters…?<\/p>\n

Rucksacks are such useful things. In a recent reading, the wonderful poet Carolyn Forch\u00e9 <\/a>said that the small, daily — even hourly — choices we make are what really shape and form us. The rucksack of your <\/em>\u00e6sthetic, <\/em>she called these choices. As if my ideas of beauty, \"\"<\/a>of art, of what is lovely and necessary, are not formed in any large moment or epiphany, but instead in the thousand things I decide to do — or not do — daily. Forch\u00e9 was responding to a question about what and who to read, and how to learn to write, but her statement rang a loud bell for me. Yes,<\/em> I thought — everything counts<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In other words, missing the last plane to Saudi Arabia before the Gulf War is no more important than my ongoing decisions to stay home w\/ my two sons while we lived those 8 years in Saudi Arabia. The day after day time with them, w\/ my husband, learning to cook and make tea and working on writing: these were every bit as formative.<\/p>\n

And as much as post-graduate work, Forch\u00e9 argues, my choices in what I read daily comprise who we become. My \u00e6sthetic<\/a> is not only the Pound I read in classes, but the Goudge I read overseas, the Persig I taught in class, the British cookbook I pore over at breakfast.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I love this. It dovetails nicely w\/ my Buddhist sensibility :). That lovely word ‘practice’ is part of what drew me in to Buddhism in the beginning. The idea that you don’t have to be perfect — you can learn beginner’s heart through practice. Through writing a blog. Through the hourly choices of a hundred hundred days. Through wondering what your father carried in his own rucksack. And what that might have said about his \u00e6sthetic…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was my father’s rucksack in WWII. It was found in a barn a couple of years ago, in France. I have no idea how it got there, other than Daddy fought in France. Nor what was in it when it was discovered. If anything ~ When we were notified it had come to light,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,37,22],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britton-gildersleeve","category-family","category-poetry","tag-carolyn-forche"],"yoast_head":"\n'the rucksack of my \u00e6sthetic' (whatever that is...) - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This was my father's rucksack in WWII. It was found in a barn a couple of years ago, in France. 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