On rhythm and writing and rhythm and life & week 15 of 52

finding the heartbeat

Averages:

• Our hearts beat 60-100 beats per minute

• We take around 12-18 breaths per minute

• We sleep an average of 7 hours a night

• Adults type around 40 words per minute

• Our brains process around 70,000 thoughts each day (Cleveland Clinic)

• 4/4 time is the most common beat in popular songs

Rhythms dominate our lives, and when we feel out of sync, it’s usually because an expected rhythm is disrupted. Or we can’t fully access it.

In my early twenties, I loved Hunter S. Thompson’s writing because he could discuss everything from the absurdity of politics to the inner workings of a motorcycle gang with a cadence that kept me poised to read more. I didn’t realize it then, but it was less about what he was saying and more about the rhythm of his prose.

Thompson’s writing was easy for me, a person who has always been a slow reader for a few reasons. It wasn’t an “easy read” in the classical sense of simplicity and predictability, but his writing had a cadence that was easy to follow; this rhythm supported my ability to feel and focus. So many of my favorite writers do this: Rachel Kushner, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Edwidge Danticat, Toni Morrison, and Vladimir Nabokov—to name a few.

Poets probably know a lot more about rhythm than I do.

Yes, I’ve written a poem or two, but I can’t claim the poet’s expertise. I can speak to the prose authors whose rhythmic writing grips me, and I believe they do this the same way a song does.

In rhythmic prose, there is a flow, a tell, a freedom, then a hook. There is a give-and-take that is purely language and feeling-based and not reliant so much on what is happening in the storytelling.

Much like a charismatic speaker, well-versed in the art of rhetoric, can make people feel so much that they forget the meaning behind their words, a writer can use rhythm to seduce a reader into other worlds or scenes or ideas in a way that no clever plot could touch. Maybe this is my bias, but it could be what people mean when they use the term “literary.”

I wanted to share this because while I read for many reasons: insight, small moments of immersion, getting lost in another world … it is getting lost in ideas and stories with a deliberate and delicate placement of words that allows me to dance with words. Images and marks on the page become feelings.

I innately revise for rhythm. Sometimes it comes out naturally, sometimes I feel it lacking when I read something aloud.

In light of the AYTL experiment, I was thinking about rhythm and where it is evident and missing in my life. Routine can be rhythm; we can hear it in birdsong or the clicking and buzzy call of cicadas. The low rumble of nearby toads or the traffic you hear each morning from your front porch.

Rhythm brings comfort, it resides within. We have a heart rate, sleep cycle, and brain waves measured in hertz and patterned based on experiences and repetition. We find comfort in watching rhythms, which is why we are tasked to return to our breath in mindfulness practices and meditation. The breath and the heartbeat are our natural rhythms.

It can be comforting when we pay just a little bit of attention.

While I think our lives have greater rhythms, such as the yearly celebrations or seasonal mood shifts, the immediate rhythms can be more accessible. And when we entertain the idea of living with more awareness of the rhythms in our lives, we can find a lot of new realizations.

Prompt: Rhythm is often where meditation or mindfulness begins because rhythms give us something to return to. Write about a single day, and focus on the sounds and rhythms in the scene.

AYTL prompt: Observe the rhythms of the day.

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