Mindful Scribbling

Elizabeth Herron, Sonoma County's current Poet Laureate, said this in a recent interview: "Some of us writers, we’re led first to writing to find something in ourselves we wouldn’t find any other way.”

This is what I've been feeling, lately, when I wonder why I do it. There are other ways one could spend one's time. Part of my drive is a love of language, and words. Sounds and meanings and everything they evoke in the body and brain. And another key reason I write is my desire to live the examined life, my search for understanding what I can of the world and my place in it. Not just looking at the surface of things - not just self-reflection, but a dive into what lies underneath and beyond. Beyond myself, beyond preoccupation with past and future. Writing puts me in the moment of writing, even if the subject matter and my imagination are far from the moment. The physical act of typing words on a screen is a very present-inhabited act.

Sitting

Today marks the 119th anniversary of my maternal grandmother's birth. I just finished my first guided meditation with the poet David Keplinger. What an amazing gift. Israel is preparing to invade Gaza, and there is so much pain and suffering in this world, but also so much beauty and love. The poem that Keplinger read and discussed was Milton’s Sonnet 19 “When I consider how my light is spent…” and David talked about a friend of his in her 90s who said to him of the troubles in the world something like, “At my age, what is one to do but know?” What can I do but know, and in some cases, just be. Just wait, as Milton suggests. I am self-propelled to act, always. Busy and productive. But the year is coming to a darker, colder time, when it is appropriate to be still. I will learn to pause my body, to allow my thoughts, to have a different relationship to my feelings. I am hobbled by an underlying shame and guilt that does not serve me. I suppose it could easily stem from a childhood where one parent encouraged choices that the other would have considered “wrong” or which society, and myself by extension, would have judged as shameful. November is coming, and with it Nanowrimo. Is there anything that warrants 50,000 words of writing in terms of my time and energy? A novel? A memoir? The sky is lightening and there is one bright star or planet (is it Jupiter? I must check - see? the push to act, always) high in the sky, and very big and bright, even as the silhouette of the trees that remain surfaces against the gray horizon. I believe I shall rise before 6 every morning and meditate. It will change my life. Let my efforts be in sitting, in being and experiencing a deeper understanding and compassion for myself and the world, rather than in doing. Always doing.

The Writer's Life

There's are parts of the myth about the writer's life that I can't shake - that I still, at some level, believe.

The writer spends days alone. Pounding on a keyboard. Staring out the window. Taking long walks. Staring out the window, into space, some more. Maybe a run. More stillness. Extracting stories from her grey matter for the purpose of - what? connecting with others? nothing more than the art of creation? I suppose it depends on the writer.

The parts of the myth that I don't buy into are the sleepless nights, the drinking or drugs, the smoking cigarettes and scraping by in a garret. That might work for some, but it's not my gig. I'm too vain about my health and appearance, too proud to be unable to pay my bills. 

The parts that I know are real but don't dwell on are the hustle, the push to write-to-deadline, to hone, to hawk, to market and publicize and travel and read and answer inane or inappropriate questions. Rinse, repeat. This is if one considers "success" to be a matter of money and/or recognition. Or if one considers "success" important to begin with. 

All I know is that I love language and words and that I think best and feel quite happily alive when stringing sentences together on screen or (sometimes) page. I don't think I'm speaking to anyone but myself, so perhaps this is narcissistic? Or an echo chamber? (Echo. Echo.) Except, writing pushes me to read and learn more. It expands my world rather than contracting it. In that way, the more I do, and the longer I do it, the more I might expect growth, even if it's slow and sometimes hard to detect.

The Sealey Challenge. Again.

As I did in August of 2020, I am taking on the Sealey Challenge this year: reading 31 books of poetry (chapbooks are acceptable) in 31 days.  

Back then, when I was younger and perhaps more insane, I also vowed to blog daily, tweet daily, and submit poetry daily in the month. I am older and busier and perhaps a bit lazier, and I don't know that I'll manage the submitting daily. I think I shall try, however. 

Still Here

  And, sometimes: Still. Here.

Have I ever gone an entire year without a blog post, before this, since starting? I would have to check, but regardless, I am still here, and have been - although the "here" has changed. In November, we left our cul-de-sac home of twenty-nine years for the long-longed-for home in the country. 

We're now on nearly three acres with a large shop for D. and an incredible view, and lots of room for me to garden. I received three swarms this spring, and have a lovely little apiary. We also purchased nine chickens of various varieties six weeks ago, and they are in that awkward stage of not looking like chicks or, really, like chickens. They've been living in a box in our sunroom and will move to a coop in a stable stall this coming weekend. 

The grand-toddler comes to stay at least one night per weekend, and there is a little brother on the way. We have aspirations of turning the 4-car garage into a home for the kids and their kids, but it will take a lot of work and time and money, the latter of which are a little scarce.

I changed jobs in August - a longer commute, but more pay. And in the end, far too much stress and anxiety for me personally than any amount of money would be worth. I reached a level of burnout and angst that I hadn't seen in many years, and self-demoted to a much less challenging job within the system - closer to home. In the interim I took a couple of weeks of sick leave and spent a month filling a role in yet another department that was delightful - very task-oriented, very detail oriented. I love productivity, even if it's a daily list of the same chores with different moving parts. (Sending books to libraries all over California, processing books coming to our patrons from all over California, and processing the returns.)

I just like physical work and working with books and helping people, and this new job has all those components. So between the house and the job and D. finishing his big 2-year-long projects and the kids doing well, I'm sitting here full enough of gratitude and "spoons" that I can write something in this blog, and in my poetry blog soon, too - especially since I'll be a featured reader in a month from now at the cafe, and will have to present a lot of material to a live audience. 

Here's the view from the stables half-way down the property, up to the house and the road beyond it, and the pines beyond that. The pump house and shop are the buildings in the fore-ground. The garage is to the right, and the little house is to the left.