| (Although, if I must be confined… here is where I’d want to be banished!!) |
Today I am feeling less than authentic. What happened, I wonder? In an attempt to connect and get to know other writers, I joined up with a bunch of groups and got myself bewildered and directionless.
Sadly, writing is a bit of a lonely enterprise. It always has been. These days with the Internet, and just about every person in the world having a blog – we all think we have something to say. We all do have something to say.
Just – does anyone want to hear us?
When I’m writing from my heart, I get into a zone, and I am speaking a truth. My truth might change before the end of the paragraph, but in this moment I am standing on my mountain, telling it like it is. Maybe I’m just not a good joiner. Maybe I don’t belong in a writer’s group. Maybe I just belong standing with my coffee cup, staring out a window, like Billy Collins says. He says (in the poem, Monday) all poets need a window – forever and ever, that’s all we poets do is stare out windows and mumble to ourselves and think about the wings of that bird, what the dew inside the cup of that flower must taste like to a bumblebee, and why weightlessness is so appealing. Those are the things we think about and they don’t always spell out nicely into something that makes sense. That’s why we don’t always talk to people. We stand at our windows, or on our back balconies and muse. We are a bit solitary.
This is what I need to get back to.
The month of February is an insanely busy month for me. I’ve taken on multiple projects that are work related, and community serving related. I’m teaching two classes this month for Junior Achievement. The weekly newsletter prompting people to sign up for our Bowl-a-thon is also something I took on as a task. And I’m training a new person in my office and working on building my team, which has its own challenges. I’ve got great people on my team who all see things differently. Perfect! We need all those viewpoints. We just have to get them to meld and grow together and realize each others strong suits.
If you want something done, ask a busy person.
So, why not set myself one more little task on the side for February? Why not? I’ll just schedule it in between root canals. No – I don’t have dental work coming this month, it’s just the thing that popped into my head. So apparently I’m feeling a tiny bit, just a skosh, of dread. Well played! So, I’m going to start working on The Artist’s Way again this Sunday. Because I know there’s more that I want to write than my little blog entries. I’ve started it twice before and each time I bombed after the second week claiming I didn’t have enough time. Well, I’ve been writing daily for almost a month, and I think it’s time to have some better objectives. I want to work through my writing blocks, or just lack of direction, until I reconnect with my passion and what I believe I’m meant to do.
Starting Sunday, February 5, 2012.
So that I can be the artist I’ve always wanted to be. So that I don’t hide my art under piles of excuses for why I’m not published. I am a poet. I have poetry that moves people to tears. I want to get it out there. No one ever gets a big head from getting a poem published, because it’s a tiny little world that even appreciates poetry. It will only be a couple of college professors and some waitresses that read these journals, but they will be professors and waitresses that love poetry. And I will make them cry. There. I’m sadistic, but that is my ultimate goal! Tears. Read ’em and Weep!
photo from here.
