This morning as I opened the sliding glass door to the balcony so I could sit and have coffee and read a few poems, the smell of the humidity in the air reminded me of early mornings at the beach before the heat grew oppressive under the high sun. I had pulled out my volume of collected poems from Stephen Dobyns – I’ve read a lot of them, but it’s been some time. I’ve never approached this book straight through, or if I have, I’ve never gotten all the way through it. I tend to pick a spot and then work my way backwards or forwards from there. I came across a few poems that I really enjoyed. In keeping with my sentiments from yesterday (longing and laughter), I enjoyed these lines from “Letter Beginning with the First Line of Your Letter”:
Across the water, freighters take on cargo.
I stand on the shore, envying each destination.
Because you are not here, I think of you
everywhere; wherever they are going
they must be going to you. We were like
fat people in old cartoons who could
barely kiss for all their mortal baggage;
like holiday travelers who have missed their trains,
are stranded in a European station surrounded by
wicker baskets, belted trunks. We had such baggage.
It increased and became such a mountain that we
lost each other behind it, until our voices
grew distant and we returned to writing letters.
Whose baggage, whose mistakes, who cares now?
Having nearly finished my coffee and feeling a little inspired, I came in to write. My intent was poetry. I jotted down a dozen or so lines, but felt rudderless. Not every poem has to go somewhere, and not every poem is worth pursuing. At a younger age, I think I would have forced the issues. I think I would have fussed with the words and wrestled with the concept until I had something complete. Today, I was content to let the mess clutter up the page and walk away from it. I have a journal filling up with these things. There will be something I can salvage from it.
As I tried to write, I could sense a quick and unsettled antsy-ness. I got up to throw something away, I paced a bit, I thought about the dishes in the sink. I thought about my friend Sarah who yesterday wrote about the crushing depression she is experiencing (she recently left a man she cared very deeply about and is mourning the loss, but also recognizes that much of her depression is a chemical imbalance). I thought about plans I’d like to make and travel I’d like to do. I thought about what it would be like to get paid to write and teach writing. I thought about a dream I had in which I was with a woman who was cheating on her husband with me. I thought briefly about a message I received last night saying my profile was captivating and that my eyes have a gentle kindness to them. Which, in turn, made me think about love languages which made me realize that perhaps I appreciate words of affirmation more than I thought I did. Last night when I read the message, I also thought about the opposite of the love languages, how withholding affection would be devastating to a person whose love language is touch or how criticism would be destructive to a person who needs words of affirmation. This made me remember how every morning before I drove home, I left a new note for my ex-fiancee telling her that I loved her so that she had something pleasant to wake up to. Those words, “a gentle kindness in you eyes” were nice to hear. I really believe that you can see those things in someone’s eyes. It was something I saw in my ex, B. It was nice to hear it, because ever since being called controlling and manipulative, I’ve had some self-doubt. I think it’s why I appreciated B’s nickname for me “full heart” as much as I did (it was something that a friend of hers said about me). It’s how I see myself and how I try to be in the world.
… How quickly one can get sidetracked – especially if comfortable with stream-of-consciousness. I came in to write a poem, I followed my mind as it wandered to morning notes and depression and affairs and self-worth. I tried to go down a similar path last night before bed. I had started a poem about the woman and her two kids who were on top of double peak the day I proposed – telling their story in which we were just a couple sitting on a bench. How they had no idea what was in my heart and mind or what was about to happen on a secluded rock a few hundred feet away as they ran around pointing and yelling. I looked at a few pictures of double peak to remember some details of the scenery – the benches, the scraggy trees, the center point. I stopped writing and turned the light out. As I rolled on my side, I thought about going back to California, revisiting Pannikin and C’est la Vie in San Diego, writing poems from the beach. I thought about what it means to reclaim personal history, to rewrite that chapter. I felt an odd pressure in my chest and tried to focus on that – it was as if my breathing became heavy. Labored breathing in the midst of a respiratory pandemic…. the dull pain moved from the front to my back, just between my shoulders. I thought about aging and the unexplained aches and how much more aware of my body I’ve become over the years. I thought about how much of this might just be a manifestation of the mind, a psychosomatic drifting off to sleep – that was the poem I was about to get up and write, but was sure I’d remember all of the details in the morning (I don’t).
My plan for the day was to read and run this morning. Apply for a few jobs this afternoon, and submit a few more poems for publication (My friend Deb’s encouragement the other day makes me think someone somewhere might accept something).