whittle down,
consider,
then remember
I care.
--
It is my birthday
and I begin again.
I turn between
poetic and honest:
I have always been
my birthday.
--
In the anonymous solitude
of the ocean
I dissolve sadness,
my thoughts
pure as an old piano.
That Fool, Feeling
whittle down,
consider,
then remember
I care.
--
It is my birthday
and I begin again.
I turn between
poetic and honest:
I have always been
my birthday.
--
In the anonymous solitude
of the ocean
I dissolve sadness,
my thoughts
pure as an old piano.
Everything is an experiment, including you. What a relief, right? Here's a little exercise I really enjoy. It's fine to try in in a public space (I did it at work and got a bemused chortle), but it's better to be alone to start. You'll feel less self-conscious and will follow your instincts rather than whatever it is your mind tells you. This a chance to let whatever feelings are in you now to have a voice, form, and movement:
Make a wordless noise. Any noise (don't overthink, let whatever bubbles up be the sound), and then after repeating it a few times, find a movement that goes with it. What part of your body instinctively wants to move to that sound? It can be small (just a foot, or an eyebrow), or your whole body. Make the sound and movement until you tire of it, or it turns into another sound and movement.
If you have time, write a little about the experience.
How do you feel? Did any sounds/movements feel like characters emerging? Did you find yourself thinking "what should come next" or did you find your internal chatter quiet down? How does everything around you appear now? What, if anything, has shifted?
My mother was my best reader. She always read what I wrote, and commented on it in some way. Either in the vague, not entirely complimentary way of "How'd you do that?" or "Why did you write that?" or in a very specific-to-the-line way that let me know she understood, and felt what I was trying to do. If I could make my mother or father laugh or cry through whatever project I was working on, I knew I was on the right track. Both of them were brilliant people with deep imaginations, talents, and skills. I wanted to be more like them, and I wanted them to understand how I viewed the world too.
What they loved to read was different. Mom read short stories, plays, Tom Robbins, David Sedaris, memoirs. Dad's tastes leaned toward the historic biography, sci-fi, and spy novels, and he loved any book that had to do with the legend of King Arthur. I'm not sure my father understood how he ended up with a poet for a daughter, but I think he enjoyed it to some degree.
After Mom died, I discovered all the publications of mine she'd saved. Many of them I'd forgotten about, including a newsletter I'd edited for a writing group, one of my very early poetry publications, and a program for a show I wrote.
My "why" for writing or creating anything was always to make my parents feel something, and respond. Pride in me was never the goal. The goal was always to connect with them on an emotional level.
Now I just hope to make anyone feel in a world full of numbing distractions, and I don't always feel up to it. My "why" is something of a "why bother?" on some days, a scattershot of thoughts I have to confront to get to the work. The only rule is work. That is how you catch onto things.
Ah, a memory: I am standing in my slanted kitchen in the house on Armstrong Street, twirling the six foot phone cord around my wrist like a bracelet. I am 35. I can hear my mother ask through the phone receiver, "So, what projects are you working on now?"
My love is in being. My love is in writing poems, and letters. My love is in how I play, create, and share. My love is in my worst dancing. My love is in my laugh.
My love is also in my struggle to share in what I feel is a meaningful way, in ways that will reach others. What do I do with all of my poems? My ideas? Where do I begin to find a home for the project I've been working on all year? Do I continue to teach and perform as I have in the past (I know the answer to that is no), or find new ways? Well, there's love in the not-knowingness, in this cloudy funkytown where I find myself, and a burble of excitement as well. Just enough, like a weak fountain full of pennies and dimes in the center of the roundabout.
An inspiration for me is the work of Corita Kent. I keep her Ten Rules for Students and Teachers pinned to a corkboard above my desk. It is brilliant, as was Corita. She was a force of love and artistic talent, and she shared her gifts as a teacher, social justice advocate, artist, and as a sister in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I recommend her and Jan Seward's book, Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit. Each day when I look at the rules, one sings to me more than another. Today, Rules 4, 6, 9 and 10 are in harmony.
RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
RULE TWO: General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined: this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE EIGHT: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
RULE TEN: We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything—it might come in handy later.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give uswe find poems.