February's Foolhearty Give-It-a-Go

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? 

Owl Pellets

I think of my poetic process as the digestive tract of an owl. Of course, doesn't everyone? My poems take awhile to process, and each poem is a pellet full of fur and bones and other bits of indigestables, but something whole, a product of being well fed. I realize I am saying my poems are poop, but they are fascinating poop, worthy of poking around in for the occasional treasure.

Yesterday I saw two things I thought were remarkable, and that I hope made it into the deep recesses of my poet-owl's digestive tract. The first was a frilled, foil Dollar Tree Valentine heart decoration slapped on top of a "No Trespassing" sign. The words "No Trespassing" peeped through the empty space of the heart. 

The second was an attempt at beautifying the concrete barriers on a stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Whoever constructed them used a texture tool to shape some lollipop trees  --  ideas of trees. The real trees behind them stretched out their intricately networked branches over the barriers and cast shadows on top of the fakery.

And today I've made myself cry by reading an excerpt of the Velveteen Rabbit, having gone down the "what is real?" thought process while writing this. It doesn't apply to concrete lollipop trees and real ones shadowing them, but it does apply to aging. Dan took a photo of me yesterday and texted it to me, and I zoomed in on my eyes, oh look at my eyes, almost loved into raisins from smiles and squints of sunny days.

The Why

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?"