I have days, today being one of them, when I feel like my life’s failures and frustrations are mostly the result of poor organizational skills and a piss-poor memory. There are times when I feel like I might have missed some class that everyone took – maybe in the fourth grade or freshman year of college – a class that teaches people where to put things and how to organize thoughts in ways that make sense and are more easily retrieved. I feel like all of those years when we were supposed to be writing research papers and jotting down notes on color-coded index cards, I ignored the directions and instead had a jumble of pages torn out from spiral-bound notebooks – nothing highlighted or else everything highlighted. Out of embarrassment, procrastination, or sheer incompetence, I often failed or missed the mid-point check-ins when we were supposed to show our progress. I’m pretty sure I would be terrible at trying to sequence a novel or a script.
I sometimes think back to the fourth grade and how the other kids memorized the names and order of presidents and states and capitals while I…. well, I’m not sure where I was or where my head was. Maybe I was absent that week or month. I just know I didn’t learn those songs, or remember those things, or do very well on my spelling tests… and somehow, this feels like it’s coming back to haunt me as an adult. I’m not worried much about the facts that I don’t know (sure, I suck at those categories on Jeopardy), but I am worried that I somehow missed developing important skills that might have been part of a deeper lesson plan on how to be a productive and successful adult. Some days, I want to go back and ask Mr. Elias for another chance – maybe a few hours of tutoring so I could learn what the other kids learned.
These feelings of “inadequacy” are usually spurred on by comparisons to professional colleagues or other writers… people who are winning 40 under 40 awards, people who are tackling complex problems with the appearance of ease, people who are getting published. I’ve been submitting a few poems to journals, getting some rejections, and desperately trying to write some new poems. When I look to submit, I go back to old poems and if I’m not turned off by them, I might revise. Sometimes, the whole process of writing feels like I’m trying to learn a foreign language. And when the writing doesn’t come or the old poems make me cringe – I try to read. The reading is either for inspiration or to encourage me to stretch beyond my normal style and voice. The reading is to remind me that a poem can be a story that begins with how the crease in the grocery store receipt reminds me of a note I found on the street that said “Billy, come home” or that simple lines can suck us in: “My brain is an old man in sensible shoes who walks each morning to feed pigeons in the park.” (Rebecca Macijeski) Except when I want to read for inspiration, I can’t always remember where I found those poems or stashed that note. I don’t usually write in my books, and maybe I should. I don’t highlight and I’m not great at filing. Poor organization – mental and otherwise. The end result is I begin to feel like I don’t know how to write or read or apply anything I’ve ever learned.
When the writing doesn’t come, I’ll get frustrated with my inability to focus long enough to drill down to one story or one concept and write something that is tight and spare and also bigger than the world and not a copy of something someone else has done. This too feels like another skill I’m lacking or another class I somehow missed – how to be more present and not worry about what’s going to happen ten steps down the road. How to not cancel my thinking before it’s even begun. How to just get it all down and sort it our later. Hemingway wrote, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.” Quite often, if I manage to get it down, I struggle with the sorting and the wastebasket and I seldom feel like I’ve uncovered a masterful line and instead feel like I might be swimming in shit.
On these days peppered with self-doubt, I begin to wonder how I’ve survived this long. This is the imposter syndrome creeping in. How have I gotten to the executive level in two different careers when I feel like a mess and maybe a fraud? So many other people seem to have their shit together – seem to have a plan of attack (professionally and personally). Their ambitions seem clear and the steps logical and orderly. Set ’em up, knock ’em down. On these days, writing or working or pursuing projects feels like it should be as easy as tying my shoes. Yet, here I am I’m looking down at the laces a little dumbfounded about what to do next and confused by these curious pieces of string at my feet. My mind says “shit, you know how to do this. You’ve written plenty of things – just let it rip. Follow the winding path.” But something else says, “I don’t know how or there are too many paths.” This is also when I long for community – or at least someone else to tell me they have these days too and are just as confused as I am.
To be clear, this isn’t a matter of lacking confidence. I have lots of people tell me I’m smart or that I’m good with words or that I think differently than the people they know. I hear it enough that I almost believe them. I say that with a mix of false modesty and genuine modesty. In my head, especially on days when I’m feeling stuck or untrained, I don’t feel terribly gifted. I’m not looking for reassurance or praise and I’m not really looking for feedback – I think I’m looking for a way forward, or a path to something else, or some type of growth. But I’m also looking for ways to get out of my own way.
As an example – for at least a week I’ve been thinking of signing up for an online poetry workshop with a well-established poet. I pause on it for a half-dozen reasons. It’s only four workshops – two hours every Sunday in January. It costs $275 which seems steep for four workshops (and steep given that I’ll soon be without a regular paycheck). Are there better workshops for less? What if I don’t get anything out of them? And this feels kinda transactional. I’ve read some of her work and I’ve liked it, but what if I don’t like it enough? Learning from another writer feels a little like choosing a therapist. I think you want to have similar enough approaches that you’re comfortably challenged, but not out of your depths and confused. I pause because I worry I might not be able to write on command in a workshop. I pause because what if something comes up and I can’t make one of the four sessions…. I pause because maybe I’m afraid of the many different ways I might fail at something I’ve come to care about – or worse yet, that I might actually succeed.
I suspect these feelings of confusion mixed with doubt mixed with Tom Collins mix and a jigger of self-effacing humor go beyond a lack of organizational skills and are really an expression of humility in the face of my own ignorance. I suspect part of what I’m getting at is that I might want some new challenges but would prefer they be assigned as opposed to being discovered. I feel like I’m craving some of the more formal aspects of receiving direction and instruction. For two years, I’ve been in leadership mode, instructor mode, and have maybe had less than an adequate amount of outside inputs and influences. In this respect, I can’t rule out that maybe I’m surrounded by the wrong people and experiences. Maybe I don’t need to go back to my fourth grade teacher but instead need to find some folks who can teach me new things or suggest different avenues of exploration. I know I’ve written elsewhere about wanting a mentor or two. I want to see how other people organize their draft, new, and dead poems. I’d like to know how others go about writing a slice of life essay. How regimented are their processes? Who are they reading, what are they learning, how do they revise?
With the exception of some of my Friday friends, I have so few authentic conversations of curiosity. Paying for that type of stimulation feels like I’m seeking some mental or educational brothel – a red light district of the mind. Yet, I think an aspect of formal education that I underappreciated was that teachers who knew more and had different experiences shared their knowledge and introduced new “things” (ideas, books, techniques) to their students. If the teacher is trusted, there’s a level of vetting already baked in to what they share. I suppose I lament that for much of my life, I didn’t develop those “enriching” types of relationships and I’m learning that discovery of these “things” on one’s own involves a bit more risk. Sure, I can look up how to get organized or how to write certain types of poems or essays, but I’ll probably have to wade through a bunch of crap before I find something appropriate. And some days, I’d like someone to do some curating and organizing for me – or at least show me how they do it… because I secretly suspect that if I were just a little more organized or diligent or had better routines and study habits, the world would be mine – or at least look a little less confusing. I might even feel like I know how to tie my shoes and maybe write a poem.