By Anne-Marie Oomen
Practicing Metaphors, pg 83.
I enjoy thinking about metaphors as units of resolution and I like responding to images—I’m here to teach ekphrasis after all. So this exercise in metaphor and image seemed a natural draw. I like metaphors for their insights, but also as comfort for resolving unrest about accomplishing a particular goal—in this case, launching a book. When a book arrives in the world, a writer must leave the security of the desk, home, and page to enter a world of public interaction where “events” happen. And that may be why I found the first image, a birds eye airport photo so apt right now—all those many comings and goings in airports parallel my current calendar—and state of mind, and these airport flights must be as intensely monitored as the events that must be planned to support the publication of a book. I imagined the photo as a drone image that might be assisting the controller in the tower. From above, she knows which flights are offboarding, onboarding, waiting “in the wings,” and preparing to take off, fully loaded. Each flight has a destination, timeline, and a crew of supporters, similar to running the various tour events for launching a book into the world.
A book tour is a privilege and an honor—as is the process of flying if you think about it deeply—to replicate the gifts of birds, but it’s also a multi-faceted and demanding process with lots of crowding, small time/space ratio, a lot to carry (how many copies of your book fit into your trunk or your overhead compartment?), and often surprising logistics—where in space is that plane—where am I supposed to be in an hour? It takes daily concentration, and it does not (yet) leave room for much literary creativity.
This is not a complaint. I know there is a rough order to the airport and to my life, but the initial feeling is often one of chaos. And that is the challenge, that feeling (real or not) of unease and pressure. I would like to dilute it. Even as I know things are going pretty much as they should, I don’t know when the unexpected may happen, when one might be delayed. I contracted covid and had to cancel some events, and now I need events (flights) to make up that momentum. So the challenge is the sense of complexity that is not always pleasant when I should be feeling gratitude for the book and for connections with readers.
In contrast, I studied the second image on that page, of the tool drawer with everything in its place. This seemed momentarily like a goal—one thing at a time and everything in its place, but that is a flawed metaphor because it implies a stillness—that didn't match my feelings about this phase of intense complexity. So I asked myself what attitude I would like to bring to the work—and realized I need to think of this phase in my life as a system evolving in an ever shifting landscape of calendar. So I studied the top image, again a bird’s eye view, but this image was of a meandering river that looked lush and steady. This of course is the opposite goal of all this rush and hustle of the airport image. So the river metaphor suggested a new thing: I can’t change this bustle, but maybe I can change attitude to one more gracefully interwoven. Yes, the process is the process. But what if I strove to view all the tour events as a river instead of an airport, yes ever changing, full of currents and cross-currents, but in flow, thus responding to and connected with the flux of weathers—as one is when one connects to an audience, when one moves from one event to the next with confidence and consistent energy. Psychologically, I want to shift my attitude of this stage of a literary life from the perception of the airport to the perception of the river. If I mentally held the river image more often, would the tension of the airport ease toward a more organic response. Would it come to Flow? Either way, the exercise clarified my feelings and gave me a sense of direction.