It feels arrogant to consider myself a writer or an artist. At best, I’m a normal dude (though I initially, accidentally typed dud) who happens to write a little and has an appreciation for artistic endeavors. I say this because I’ve spent the morning (after breakfast and reading the news) on the sofa with a cup of coffee reading some poetry and being distracted by the cat and my phone. The confluence of these things, the train of thought that ties these ideas together is my consideration of the writer’s craft and the writer’s mind. I read a poem about clamming – yes, going out and digging for clams. It’s not something I’ve ever done. I don’t know whether the author had done it either, but she chose to write about the experience. As I thought and read, or read and thought, I imagined the experience myself. It seemed like one of those authentic moments that we can have in life. I thought about how many of these moments I may have already had, but also how might I experience these moments going forward? It seems like it would be a mistake to be overly intentional about them – to create a bucket list and check them off…. no, I think the answer is in living life with purpose and presence – making yourself open to these types of moments. Reflection then, to some degree, is the task of art. To find those moments and make them relatable. I wondered if the poet clammed with friends, parents, a lover…. the poem read as though it were a solitary experience – and yet there I was picturing the birds feeding off the semi-empty shells – creating my own version of the experience
The phone and the cat distractions made me think about time – specifically how I mentally live in the present, past, and future. I took a picture of Nick sitting next to me on the sofa. He gave me nice headbutt, and then settled in to a really goofy pose on the arm of the sofa. Looking at the pictures on google photos, I got those one, two, and three year reminders of past photos. A year ago today, we had a new sofa delivered – apparently I took a picture of Nick checking it out. Of course, the we in that statement was my ex-fiancee, B, and I. Very briefly, I chastised myself for thinking and living in the past. I thought about her boyfriend’s comment that her therapist says she lives too much in the past. I thought about things like sentimentality and the purpose it might serve – at least as it relates to writing. In my head, I was building up the counter argument – defending living in the past. Arguing that I also live in the present and the future – and so might she. Arguing in favor of all types of reverie and all types of dreaming. All of this arguing (in my head) took place in the span of a minute or two before I came over to my computer and decided to write about it – a process which, in and of itself, extends time. That minute or two in my head has now taken ten or fifteen minutes to recount and write, has now become semi-permanent because I’ll re-read this, edit it, rethink the moment and it’s varying degrees of argumentation.
early morning headbutt 
cat yoga? 
new sofa
The past can be extremely rich and fertile soil for thought and inspiration. Not only do we learn from the mistakes, but we can use the positive things as a roadmap for how we want to live. More than once on this blog I’ve written about the small things that I miss with my ex: coffee in the morning, leaning in to each other not doing anything other than looking out the window, walking the dog and talking about our day. I spent the last few years of my marriage not doing those things. It’s not where we were. It’s not who we were. So much of life can be taken up by the crap we have to deal with, that it seems important to focus on these small moments that happen throughout the day and often go unnoticed. Sometimes I think, at least for me, it’s less about living in the past, and more about revisiting those memories that reinforce the life I want to have. It’s why I can’t get upset that B chose to have “family walks” with her last boyfriend – it’s an important part of the life she wants to have. I suspect that whatever my next relationship looks like, it will borrow heavily from the things I enjoyed with her (ironically, that’s also the sentiment that makes going back seem so plausible – why not go with what you already enjoyed).
Yesterday I scrolled through an article on Huffington Post about an artist, Dina Odess, who draws images of everyday life with her husband. What she said of her inspiration:
“At the beginning of our relationship I was excited to move in together, and that’s what inspired me to start this series of illustrations,” she told HuffPost. “It was like a whole new experience. As time has gone by, I’ve found our peaceful life even more enjoyable than at the beginning.”
I enjoy thinking of the small moments my ex and I had together. Wine before dinner, cooking together, sharing books at the beach, seeing a couple get engaged in a field of sunflowers, beers outside of a new-to-us restaurant. Any one of those experiences is worth the slow meditation of poetry, the stopping of time, or the transformation in to something new and not yet lived. Much like a painter might use a reference photo or image, I pull from experience to try to create images and feelings with words. As a writer, I’m not there yet, but I aspire to be able to end a poem about clamming (or coffee on the sofa) in ways that talk about the wonders of the world.
How detailed and hopeful,
Mary Oliver “Clamming”
how exact
everything is in the light,
on the rippling sand,
at the edge of the turning tide –
its upheaval –
its stunning proposal –
its black, anonymous roar.
And so, like clamming, I go out digging (sometimes through the past or an envisioned future lost or still hoped for) and feast on what I find while sitting on the bright damp shore of today.