This morning, Liz said she’s already like a mother who has forgotten the trouble and travail of childbirth, already halfway to missing the daily hour (or in my case, sometimes two or more) of this month’s practice of poetry. And I’m with her – taking a deliberate space of time to do anything on purpose – to no purpose – is near impossible, and my brain and my body already crave the unfocused-focus of deliberately creating poetry with art supplies and open eyes. Despite beginning this on Easter Weekend – not traditionally a “quiet” time if you’re a church chorister – this practice gave me a little quiet – a little arbitrary time wherein I could loftily recuse myself from the world, citing Art. Mind, I write books, but somehow my brain can make that – with its entreaties and appeasement, with its pushes and pulls from readers and revisions and editors and such – much more mundane. That’s just “work,” that is attached to Filthy Lucre, despite the fact that it is, in my heart of hearts, still quite magical to create worlds and escape into them. But poetry – especially since I only have two anthology credits to my name thus – is still somehow …far Different.
Hah. Whatever I have to tell myself, I guess.
It would be a simple matter to extend this Artful Practice a bit – to try to at least get a little sketching and coloring in, but to be honest, it’s hard to justify. It’s time-consuming. It’s resource-consuming. And it pokes the voices in my head that remind me that there’s always something I should be doing – who am I to be skivving off of paying work or not Helping Others or Doing Good with my scant moments on this Earth? The idea that we are not enough on our own to make art or enjoy it is… destructive. And, unfortunately, how I was raised.
The self who I was would be astounded – shouldn’t All be known by now? Wasn’t adulthood meant to Answer All Questions? Who would have though that officially in Middle Age now I would still be so uncertain? But I am uncertain enough to make art, uncertain enough to learn and unlearn, and uncertain enough to still question and change. So as frustrating and difficult as it is to be myself sometimes – and ye squirrelly squids and monsters it is not simple – I guess the uncertainty and discomfort is…necessary. Vital for my personal…formation or whatnot. So, I’ll take it. I’ll keep this self, O Mighty Pen.
That’s what the month of observation has been to me – space for self-examining, deliberately censoring the world without as much as possible. All month long I’ve considered what I can see, peering through windows, looking out of in-groups and into spaces where I am not myself a member. It’s odd how closely aligned middle age is with adolescence; the same observable dance of declaration and denial, of conviction and conjecture. Amidst the swirl of alliance and estrangement, the same echoing queries of “Where do I belong in all of this?” remain. The answers resist simplicity as they always do, while the same conclusion comes – I simply am. I don’t know if that answer shapes who I became as a writer, or only writers can give it, but on the edge of the dance floor, I simply exist – and watch. Looking for how the gears mesh, and where the locomotion takes us.
Blank Page
A heart is
a vacant
city lot,
a pristine
prepped canvas:
potential.
who we are –
what blooms here –
our choosing.
Thanks for being along for the ride. If you’re aiming to catch up with everyone’s National Poetry Month projects for this month like I am, don’t forget that Jama-j has kindly kept a running roundup of everyone’s efforts. Happy Thursday, friends, see you next time – and remember you are so, so loved.