It feels like I’ve been staring at this screen for the entire day. My brain has been trying to settle on something and failing miserably at doing so. I tried reading, but it didn’t take. I tried writing and editing poems, but I didn’t have the patience. I did some work but felt distracted.
In this headspace, I get frustrated and bored, self-critical and mentally skittish. I pick up the phone in search of distractions: dating apps, social media, news, repeat, repeat, repeat. I read a headline about the city’s 534 overdose deaths this year compared to 544 at this time last year. I don’t know how to comprehend that. I see pictures of oil paintings – farmhouses in fields, campfires in the blue dark. Picking up the phone only furthers the self-criticism. I begin to tell myself that I am not a serious person, I am not a disciplined person. I begin to criticize myself for not have the willpower to break myself of these habits. As a group text blows up and email notifications flash, I give myself some grace. These devices are designed to hijack our attention.
The criticism goes deeper than that. After a week and weekend of spending too many nights out at the neighborhood bar drinking beers, playing pool, and shooting the shit with friends and strangers, I begin to tell myself that this is no way to live. Or there are other, more productive, more fulfilling ways to live. Going to the bar fills the time. It eats up the time – time that I could spend writing or reading or doing something other than hanging out at the bar. I’d accept bar life as my fallow time, but I don’t feel like I’m cultivating something deeper. On the nights I stay in, I scroll and scroll and scroll. The scrolling is not without intrigue. It’s not without beauty. But it has yet to inspire. Often it leads to frustrations with how the world operates and how little power I have to change it. Maybe I should meditate more, eat better, drink more water.
I scroll because I’m unpracticed at finding subject matter. I’m unpracticed at recognizing the possibilities for anything to be subject matter. The criticism lingers but softens with the word enough. I am not a serious enough person. I am not a disciplined enough person. At least that hints at an impermanent state with room for improvement.
Before my shower today, I read the personal essay “Yellow Band” by Steve Edwards, a writer whose voice I admire. I’ve enjoyed every essay I’ve read of his (which, admittedly, is only a four or five). Steve has a soft touch that blends humor and honesty and details with the ear-pleasing musicality of language. He always brings you home to some new sense of home. His sensibilities remind me of how I hope to be perceived. Steve’s writing is the type of writing I would aspire to if I were more serious, if I were more patient, if I had a better eye and memory for detail, etc. etc. etc.
Some of his essays refer to times when he and his wife were struggling financially. Writing doesn’t usually pay the bills. As I got in the shower, I remembered the time I offered to support a girlfriend while she figured things out after leaving her job to move in with me. She was thinking of taking a break from the corporate world – maybe work as barista and pursue her art. Now, wanting the same thing for myself, I can’t tell if my offer was generous or foolish, but I know I’m jealous of what I was offering. I know it was sincere. Why can’t I seem to give that to myself? My thinking swung back to how I squander my time.
During lunch, I read one of Steve’s poems about a cemetery, the first line of which reads, “Only the very old stop here.” The poem set my mind thinking. I don’t remember the last time I’ve visited someone’s grave. Living in the city, I don’t see many cemeteries. Where are our dead? Because I don’t see it, I ask myself if people still go to cemeteries and visit loved ones? Is that still a thing? I feel callous and privileged and oblivious in asking the question. All of my immediate family is still alive. Even so, I’m not sure my family are the type of people who visit cemeteries.
Last week, a memorial of candles and flowers bloomed on the sidewalk along the route of my evening walk. Every few weeks (or maybe it’s months), someone places a few flowers in the same spot: northwest corner of Union and Franklin. I always notice them. I always wonder about them. My wondering feels like a little homage. A few seconds of thinking about someone I never met. Moments of curiousity about the circumstances. Sometimes, the memorial is a single flower in a small and unassuming vase. Sometimes, it’s a few flowers scattered on the ground. Were it not for the consistency, you might not even think it was a memorial.
Last week’s memorial was more elaborate: six or eight candles, a slightly larger vase with more flowers, a photograph taped to the wall. Above the picture, a sticker, “Long Live Dru Hush” I made a note in my phone. At home, I googled. Aside from some rap songs, I didn’t find many results for Dru Hush, and nothing tying him to that intersection. The following day, the memorial was still there. I googled the intersection and traffic fatalities. A teacher was struck and killed at that intersection on November 10, 2021. For the sake of getting things right, today, I dug further. I came across a rap song from a project dedicated to Hush. He was the teacher who had been killed.
By the end of the day, I was far away from the poem and the cemetery and still struggling to latch on to something. By the end of the day, I wasn’t sure where my talents or passions might be found. I have days when I want to be better than I am and the practice is hard and slow. I’ll be on a walk and I’ll tell myself to get good at something… anything.
I stayed in tonight. I limited my scrolling and instead spent some time on substack (not quite social media). I made some tea. I read few essays and poems. I read a short piece of advice on writing by Bay Area writer Anne Lamott. It begins, “HOW TO WRITE: DAY ONE Decide to stop not writing.” Aside from this scribble, I spent much of my day not writing or partially writing. Maybe tomorrow things will be clearer. Maybe tomorrow can be day one.