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.
Mary Oliver – A Poetry Handbook
Many writers and artists, like Oliver, stress the importance of making (and keeping) appointments with yourself for your writing or art or craft. I am not always good at “being reliably there.” Sometimes, I think writing here, on this blog, doesn’t help. Sometimes, I feel this is the inattentive type of writing that keeps me from the harder work of creativity. Talking about my day or weekend or past or the latest outrage that proves life isn’t fair is an easy way to avoid focus on words and metaphors and images. My appointments are in the morning a little after breakfast. I’m usually on time, but my level of being present varies.
No sooner did I read what Oliver had to say about the matter, I found myself arguing with her (and me), making excuses, and fighting the sentiment. I had this same internal argument with my professor in my advanced fiction writing class twenty some years ago. What if I’m traveling? What if I want to sleep in and laze about with my partner? Surely, living life (loving life) is the inspiration for art… why deny myself those pleasures to meet some stodgy routine, some slave-to-the-clock appointment with myself. I do that enough at work… Then I go back to the question I had asked myself the other day, could I have loved Mary Oliver? Would I want to be beholden to a partner’s appointments with herself? Of course, this is the or way of thinking when it needs to be and… moreover, this is getting way ahead of myself. I probably shouldn’t waste my time anticipating some future problem in a relationship that doesn’t exist (except the problem already exists in the relationship I have with myself). I might be better served focusing on the here and now and deal with tomorrow’s here and now when it arrives.
I have, inside my head, a handful – perhaps a tiny bucket of knots – of struggles, debates, desires, and denials. I try to work through some of them here in this space. I try to work through some of them on my walks with the dog. I try to work through some of them whenever and however I feel like I need some clarity. As part of those debates, I hear a few different voices… not in that sense of the phrase… but opinions of people close to me. I hear my parents a lot. My mother is sympathetic and just wants me to be happy. My father also wants me to be happy, but has a stick-it-out and toughen up tone to his voice – a prescribed way of doing things without really thinking about happiness. A few of my exes are in there too – they’re mostly saying, “now you know how I felt…” There’s also a voice I can’t quite pinpoint – it doesn’t sound quite like mine, but is perhaps the voice of reason. When I’m feeling stuck or uninspired and want to leave (move to another city) it’s the voice that reminds me inspiration comes from paying attention and is possible anywhere. I argue with this voice the most. The voice will remind me of the poets in the woods or in quaint, small New England towns: Robert Frost, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Mary Oliver. I’ll argue back that I’m not those people – I’m not sure I want that type of solitude. It’s a cruel voice that replies in a snarky under the breath tone, “and maybe that’s why you’re not successful – just sayin'” This voice can also be quite practical. I’ll consider tossing a few possessions in the car and moving without a job figuring I can get one wherever I go. The voice will remind me that landlords want income verification (often a salary that pays 3x the monthly cost of rent) and they don’t care how much you have saved up in the bank. And yes, this voice doubles down with practical criticism: “maybe try to get something published before you go pursuing some writing fantasy career.”
It appears that in this tiny bucket of debates, voices, and knots are a few interconnected desires and dissatisfactions. Things that maybe a life coach or good therapist could help straighten out.
Avocation
I like and dislike my job. I try to keep it in perspective. I’ve liked lots of jobs and disliked others. Generally speaking, they all started out the same – with a level of enthusiasm. They either worked or didn’t. None of them lasted forever which is a good reminder that meaning, for me, probably comes from other places. I’m proud of the “progress” I’ve made these past two years in gaining an understanding of finance – a subject I really knew nothing about a few years ago. I’m pleased with the work I’ve done to sort through some organizational challenges and hopefully put my organization on better footing. I’m proud of some of the major obstacles I’ve overcome in taking the lead during a pandemic and through a rough transition. This work, however, has been done mostly in solitude. It has been slow and draining, and has very few public-facing rewards. I don’t need recognition, but I’d sometimes like validation – someone who can tell me I’m on the right track or who can suggest I look at things in a different way. I finally understand the phrase, “it’s lonely at the top.” Because I’ve had to focus most of my attention on stabilization, I haven’t made many strides in addressing community level issues… and therefore I don’t feel like I’m working towards something (a debate in and of itself – perhaps I shouldn’t look for that type of fulfillment). We are an impoverished organization that behaves as impoverished organizations behave. We can’t afford to take risks and we fall in to the trap of monitoring costs in ways that prevent us from doing better work. Having razor thin margins means little room for mistakes. As a leader, it feels like a complex puzzle that I’m not smart enough to solve. I’ve studied trend lines and unless we can find additional ways to raise resources, we’re on a slow path to irrelevancy – a process that started years ago and has been compounded by a pandemic and inflation. I’m not sure I could have picked a worse time to be the CEO of a nonprofit. In addition to all of this, I have very little time off. My predecessor never took long vacations, and I find myself in the same situation. I want to travel and see things, and between the dog and the job, I feel pretty tied down. And just as I say those things, I caution myself against delusions of grandeur or importance. Work will survive just fine if I take time off. I’m really not that important.
Sense of Place
Also in the bucket of knots is my continual struggle with my current geography. Ever since moving away, I have become more attuned to the importance of place – a sense of home: what’s nearby, how do I fit in with the people, what do I have access to? It’s been more of a struggle here than in Memphis. For one, there’s the politics. I’m politically liberal and I’m surrounded by Let’s Go Brandon bumper stickers. The other day I saw a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that read BLM: Bang Local Milfs. I see lot’s of aggressive flags with Punisher decals, thin blue lines, skulls and assault weapons. Freedom and American flags and little room for nuance or acceptance. This makes me uncomfortable with sharing my values or even my organization’s values. Several of my colleagues at other United Ways have changed their local logos to show support for Pride Month. I’m afraid to do that because I worry there could be a backlash from our community – it might not play well. As a brief example – a guy at a bar was saying how he got kicked out of a bar downtown by some liberal, woke-ass bouncer. The guy next to me asked him what being liberal has to do with anything. The other guy struggled to answer and finally said, he kicked me out for no reason so he’s weak-mined and woke. This makes absolutely no sense, but this is the hatred that exists towards liberals here. But more than the politics, I struggle with place because there isn’t much to do and I don’t find many like-minded people with whom I can connect (my Otto’s friends aside). I listen to all of these great podcasts and then have nobody to share them (or the ideas) with. Most of my daily interactions seem to deal with events as opposed to ideas. People talk about what they do or did and not what they think or feel, and sometimes, I long for something deeper. There’s also the absence of a music scene or larger arts scene – which really bums me out. Seeing live music brought me a lot of joy in Philly and Memphis. Seeing street art brought me joy. Seeing unique buildings and neighborhoods brought me joy. My walks here consist of my neighborhood or going downtown. I’m surrounded by fast food chains and low squat houses. Not to be forgotten in the litany of geographical complaints is the weather. It’s pretty terrible. We have a lot of gray days, and it’s cold for almost half the year. I like sunshine and warmth. I love fall, which is spectacular here, but it’s followed by a long, dark, and harsh winter. When I visited San Diego a few years ago, I was sure my ex and I would end up moving somewhere warm or perhaps back to California where she was from. I never got rid of that bug. Prior to moving to Memphis, most of my job applications were in North Carolina or California.
Relationships
Shortly after getting divorced, I met and dated a woman who was warm, affectionate, and funny. We had the best time together – always laughing. We broke things off more times than I can remember. Neither of us were ready for something with any real padding to it, but it was nice to dream we might have a future together. We did this on and off dance for a few months and then didn’t talk for quite a while. We both moved on and eventually reconnected on Facebook. We would chat every half year and then disappear. One of the last times we spoke, I was in Memphis and saying how I just wasn’t ready to meet someone new, and not sure I’ll ever be ready. I wasn’t trying to be dramatic, I was trying to cultivate a sense of living without expectations. She said it would be a shame if I didn’t try again. She was being kind and supportive and said she thinks I have a way of giving to others that shouldn’t get locked away – or something like that. I don’t take praise well, so I brushed it off… but I have often felt that in my better relationships, I am at my best because I treat the relationship as a creative act. I want to know this other person on the deepest levels. I want to surprise them in hundreds of different ways. I want us to learn and grow from the ways we’ll disappoint each other. I don’t think these things are unique to me, I just think I spend more time thinking about their depths and possibilities.
For a little while now (seven or eight months), I’ve felt like maybe I am ready to try again. Which doesn’t sound quite right, and I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s less about trying and more about being open to the possibility. Unfortunately, I live in a sparsely populated area. The chances of me finding what I might be looking for seem slim. Since October or November, after looking locally, the dating profile has been stationed in a few different cities, mostly on the west coast (where it’s more liberal, warmer, there’s more sunshine, and there’s an ocean). As much as that voice of reason tells me that people find happiness where they are (that you can’t go seeking it out or chasing the sun), in this very specific area of life, I feel that numbers and proximity play a significant role. Using the very same parameters/filters on one dating app, I’ll see over 200 possible matches in Philadelphia or San Francisco, and 13 here.
A guy I met at the bar the other week said he spends 80% of his time trying to find a partner or a girlfriend. That seems like a lot (almost desperately so) – but I can kinda understand it. It’s nice to have someone to make plans with or someone you look forward to seeing at the end of the day. It’s nice to have someone to commiserate with or to challenge each other in good (and sometimes bad) ways. I suspect one can accomplish a lot of personal growth on one’s own, but it seems to go to a different level when things are shared. A lot of the podcasts I listen to talk about the importance of sharing and connecting – some going so far as to say love is probably the only human endeavor worth pursuing (it’s usually a poet who says that type of thing). The question is, how to pursue it without really pursuing it, and how to let it run its course with all its twists and turns in a way that isn’t all-consuming and isn’t completely cold. I’m not dying to meet someone, but it’d be nice, and I might be ready. At the very least, I could use the help of a soft mirror that another person provides to break free (gently) from my own self-delusions.
Second Avocation
When I spend my time writing, especially if it’s the creative type, I feel productive and fulfilled. I would devote most of my day to this if I could. What I can’t tell is if it’s simply a hobby that serves as filler for the more glaring holes in my life discussed above. If I had greater fulfillment from my geography, or my interpersonal connections, or my job, would I make the time to write? Would I feel the need to write? If my past experiences and relationships are any indication, I would stop writing as soon as I fell in love or found better balance in these other areas. What Oliver makes clear, and many other writers have said similar things, is that writing is as much about discipline as it is talent and inspiration. Writing is about showing up. Writing is about seeing and paying attention… and when we’re blinded by the infatuation of other things (love, work, community), we often find little time to pay attention or process. Writing is a solitary practice, and as much as I’ve worked to learn to be alone, I’m not sure which of those competing ideas would win out. Again, “and vs. or” and also getting ahead of myself.
The Most Twisted Knot
Finally the dog as me and me as the ex… This is a messed up convoluted relationship of projection. I have spent a lot of time (perhaps too much time) trying to process and understand how things fell apart in my engagement. I sort of know the basics – or at least what was said. I can never really know what was going on inside this other person’s head – and anymore, it doesn’t really matter. From her, there was a constant request (need) for space – which we struggled to negotiate. On my end, I wanted to be let in. I wanted to understand this need or where it came from. I think because I was always thinking about her, happy to hear from her, and would always drop what I was doing for her… I probably expected the same in return. I don’t doubt that I felt threatened by her need to be alone. If anything, it was probably what I admired and feared most – relationships are funny that way. Her need to be free of me (mentally or physically) was interpreted (maybe by both of us) as a signal that we were at different places – irreconcilable. Other than working towards a common understanding, I don’t think either of us could have done anything differently… I would continue to pull, she would continue to push. In these instances, I’m hoping to get better at using the phrase, “help me understand.”
[As an aside, this wasn’t just with my ex-fiancee. My ex-wife needed alone time when she was working on her PhD. It wasn’t something I understood until quite recently as I’ve pursued my own writing and gained a better understanding of the concept of flow and the value of uninterrupted thinking. In the state of flow, you start to resent being pulled out of it. And when it seems like you’re always being pulled out of it, (got to go to work, got to walk the dog, got to answer this text or email) you start to resent every other obligation – family, work, friends. Life begins to feel like one big interruption and everything becomes a source of frustration. At this point, the mind feels overwhelmed and starts to see these competitions for attention as “either/or” and “all or nothing” propositions. We lose our desire to negotiate or understand and we begin to protect the self for fear of losing it.]
Because the ex-fiancee and I couldn’t work towards that understanding together (and quite honestly, I think I needed to experience her frustrations to understand them), I tried to do it on my own. It felt important. At first, I think I did it because I probably held out hope that I might one day show her the progress I had made. Look at me, I’m all grown up now… At some point, it became about achieving understanding for myself and whoever came next. It wasn’t until I practiced being alone, and writing, and all of these things that I set out to understand… and then got the dog who interrupted everything, that I started to see where she was coming from. I often think my relationship with the pooch is a lot like my relationship with this ex. I want time and space (like she did) and he’s always interrupting (wanting to play, wanting to go out, wanting to be fed, or just whining). I get annoyed with him. I tell myself that it isn’t working. And then I think this must be how she felt when I would text and ask why she didn’t respond. In a very weird way, the dog has come to represent those things I was criticized for and those things I like least about myself in my past relationships. His neediness makes me think about (and confront) my neediness… and on the more complicated days, the days when I think “ugggh, I can’t meet all of his needs, or I don’t want to” I think of how she might have had that conversation in her head dozens of times. Indeed, that was one of the things that was said – she loved me but didn’t have the patience to for me to get where she needed me to be. And that patience is always a movable line for each of us, right? I took a screenshot of a quote that said “Know yourself. If you’re quick to run or shut down, learn to breath, be still, and stay connected. If you tend to stay in burning houses too long, give yourself permission to exit sooner. This can be your shifting season.” Ironically, because they can teach each other something, those two people always seem to find each other. And if they can’t learn from each other (how to complement each other), they shift back into their positions… one leaves and the other stays in the burning house sifting through the ashes.
A common thread in all of these knots in my tiny bucket of knots are the promises we make to ourselves and others – and the discomfort we feel when those two things aren’t aligned or in balance. When we take a job, or pursue a passion, or move to a city, or enter a relationship, or get a pet, we usually do so with the best intentions and often with some vision of how it will play out. As time wears on, new realities settle in and that initial vision changes. Sometimes, it becomes unimaginable. And so we create a new vision, pursue a new job, a new relationship, or a new passion project. This cycle of decay and renewal can be both terrifyingly sad and exhilarating at the same time. I think some of the hardest parts about all of it is the acceptance of loss and the view that we somehow failed or betrayed the self and others. We, as Oliver stated, promise or hope to be “reliably there.” When we can’t or won’t or just don’t want to, we sense betrayal and shame. These feelings are all forms of attachment: attachment to our own way of living and thinking, attachment to how we think things were going to go, attachments to others and how we don’t want to disappoint, attachment to the promises (small and big) that we have made – often with ourselves. We tie ourselves in knots over these things. We worry the strands and pull at the ends… when maybe, we could spend a little more time in reflection – learning to appreciate the curves and braids, the variegated threads (which might be real or just a trick of lighting), the life full of complexities and multitudes, the contradictions and wonder. This too, is a form of showing up. Do it often enough “if you are reliably there, it begins to show itself – soon it begins to arrive when you do” bucket of knots in tow.