At some point in the day, almost every day, I sit at my computer and think I should write a poem. Except it never works that way. I suppose “never” is an exaggeration…. it just seems like if I sit down with the intention of writing a poem, I sit there and stare. One writer/teacher recently tweeted, “After teaching writing for 9 years, I’ve decided there are only two real problems: ‘I don’t yet know what I want to say’ and ‘I know what I want to say but I’m afraid to say it.'” More often than not, I suffer from the first problem. I’m fairly convinced the only way to solve this problem is through practice, and perhaps, ritual. I have this sense that getting in the habit, a real habit, of letting words flow on a regular basis allows me (and maybe other writers) to more easily see anything and everything as potential fodder. In her book, A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver writes about the courtship between a writer and the act of writing, “Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself – soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly, or it will not appear at all.”
I don’t view anything I write here, in this space, as being terribly significant. More than anything, it serves as a type of training ground – a space where I can type away and get in touch with that voice that narrates life. Quite often, I find that once I stretch a little bit by writing a few sentences, my mind seems ready to do a little more. This can be frustrating on work days. I am a slow writer. One of these inconsequential blog posts might take me a couple of hours to write. That’s a lot of warming up – especially if I have to stop and switch into work mode before I ever get to the other type of writing I hope to do. I also know, that once I start the shower, my mind switches to thinking about work (almost every time). I have thought, on more than one occasion, that instead of writing here, I should just take the subject matter and make it a poem, or find a way to slice off a piece of what I’m blathering about and turn the biography/monologue into something more creative. I consider my medium to be poetry and yet I spend almost all of my time on personal narrative. I’m aware of the disconnect, but not sure how to fix it or flip it or shorten the amount of time spent on warming up. Nevertheless, I feel vomiting words here is still better than sitting in silence or scrolling social media – it’s a step, and maybe even in the right direction.
Yesterday was one of those days when I felt like I had found a groove and began to resent my other obligations. I had committed to heading into the office for the day, and had a zoom meeting at 9. I don’t like getting into the office and hopping right into a meeting, so I need to be there no later than 8:45. I’m in the office by 8:30 on most days – but yesterday I felt like I was on a roll here. I kept looking at the clock and seeing that I was missing my usual benchmarks. I thought, I can shorten the dog walk. I can take a really quick shower. I can… there weren’t a whole lot of other things I could do to make up the time. As I headed out the door, I had two thoughts bouncing around in my mind. The first was a new poem I wanted to work on, and the second was this wondering about how many other people end up resenting having to stop their flow in order to do regular things. It was actually more self-critical than that – I was thinking about how I might have, in various relationships, been the drag, the other obligation demanding attention and pulling people out of flow. Self-awareness is a bitch. Apologies to all involved.
In an attempt to keep my momentum, I decided I would dictate notes to myself on my phone as I drove. This would be different. Instead of listening to a podcast or music, I would record my thoughts as they came up – a sort of mental dump. It seemed like it had promise. The only problem was, I couldn’t do it. It was as if I had forgotten how to talk. Every time I hit record, I would speak a sentence or the tentative title of the poem, and then the act of speaking got in the way of the act of thinking or composing. I felt awkward and uncoordinated – like something was broken between my mind and my mouth. I would try again, and my mind went into poetry reading mode as though I were reciting an already written poem. I would have these long pauses as I tried to formulate the next line, and I became painfully aware of, and uncomfortable with, recording my silence as I thought. At this point, it seemed as though I had two choices: I could speak into the phone and record every thought (related or not) or I could only say what seemed relevant to the poem I was trying to write and have lots of pauses. Neither of them felt natural and it took at least three or four tries before I could learn to speak in “notes” and snippets as opposed to trying to verbally “write” lines of poetry. This felt like an epiphany of sorts – as though I had discovered some dark recess of how my mind works – or doesn’t.
In a day or two, I’ll probably forget that I have the audio notes of a failed poem. In a more competent writer’s hands, even that would become the poem titled “Audio Notes for a Forgotten Poem” or something like that. The light was red and I was running late. The car smelled faintly of the gas pumps I had just left. I hit record and spoke, my voice still soft from sleep and silence. “To Karen on Her Wedding Day” – I think that’s a good title. Dammit, I’m either supposed to say that or just move on the the next line. “In a lifetime of a thousand intimacies, maybe with dozens of people, I’m glad you found Robert.” Do I want to mention dozens of people this early? “Remember that night in AC, sweaty with sex and a good steak dinner.” Why did I pause before saying the word sex? Should it be AC, Vegas is too cliched – include the dinner – steak is carnal, kinda works. I’ll need to build more suspense for this to have any real turn or irony – worst letter/toast to someone getting married ever – probably needs more humor. Can’t believe I forgot I need to get gas – I’m gonna have like two minutes before my meeting. This world full of intimate moments with various people, sometimes lots of people. It always means something in the here and now, right? And it all fades or is replaced by new moments and new people – the Roberts of the world. Dunn’s poem does this so much better. This kisses falling from different heights, the bruises that all eventually heal to the same white.
That’s not how the audio actually went, but it’s a close approximation of what was taking place, stopped at a light, running a little late, and trying to think through a scenario/poem, and only able to record small sections of that process. On a good morning, I’m able to put an hour to an hour and a half into thinking and writing before the shower and the dog walk and making lunch. When it goes well, that doesn’t feel like nearly enough time. If I’m lucky, I can sometimes pick the thread up when I get home – but usually I’m preoccupied with other things. These battles for time and attention used to come up in past relationships – except I was the one who had all the time. I can remember one conversation in which my partner said something to the effect of, “well, I think you’re going to be in for a surprise if you land a CEO position – it will take up all of your time and energy.” I had pushed back on that idea – saying my hope would be to hold down that type of a job on my own terms.
I struggle with that now, and sometimes wonder if I could even juggle a relationship on top of my other priorities. I have to work and I have to take care of the dog. I want to write, and presumably I’d want to spend time with this other person. And yes, demanding jobs have this tendency to bleed into morning thoughts or evening hours… worse yet is that wagging finger of guilt we feel if we don’t put in that extra time. It pokes us on the shoulder and registers its disapproval. I tend to internalize “not doing enough” as some personal flaw – a lack of ninja-like time management or mental discipline. If only I could compartmentalize better, if only I could make more/better use these hours. But creativity whether it’s artistic or scientific or romantic requires time to think and plan and play and simply do nothing. Billy Collins has said he spends a lot of time looking out windows and John Ashbery said, “I waste a lot of time. That’s part of the [creative process]… The problem is, you can’t really use this wasted time. You have to have it wasted. Poetry disequips you for the requirements of life. You can’t use your time.”
And so I pass another day… trying to break down this wall between inner monologue and story telling, trying to get to a point where words are more fluid and easy to come by and time becomes a little less relevant… shrugging off my equipment for the requirements of regular life.