Pen-y Thoughts

If you read my other blog, “Neurotic, Yet Classy”, that title may sound familiar.  Apparently, I’m a forgetful writer. I’ve been known to write something, tuck it away (or click save), and forget all about it.  Well, tonight, I’ve stumbled upon another buried treasure.

I was moving files from my laptop (where I had lazily saved them temporarily) to my thumbdrive (for keepsies) when I came across a Word document titled “writing”.  Look what I found….

From above, a mere speck of orange bobbing on an endless rolling sea, my raft is small and empty.  Beneath me, the gentle rocking of the ocean lulls me deeper into my thoughts.  Inside.  It will be weeks before I know where I’m going.  Inside.  My emotions, like the salty water beneath me, are never still.

To the east, from where the sun rises, I see the shadow of land in the distance.  My marriage.  My home.  My family.  My children.  My world.  The shoreline stretching as far north and south as I can see.  Its jagged edges crawling with people, activity, conflict, distractions.

To the west, a small island lies in wait.  Quiet.  Peaceful.  Silent.  Yet, not completely alone.  There, I see freedom.  Escape.  Tenderness and warmth.

Wasting here in this raft, my heart transforms itself daily.  My thoughts never quiet themselves.  As words and voices swell in and out of my mind like the tide; I wonder if I will ever reach land again.  Which way will the currents carry me?  Is it wrong that I choose not to paddle?  I only want to sleep.  Tuck myself in the bellows of this dainty raft, shielding myself from the world with nothing but rubber and air.

Air.  What protection will that offer me?  I’m exposed.  Like the sun on my skin, the world is free to burn me at will.  No longer can I hide from it.  If I close my eyes, it does not go away.

I need a drink.  My soul is dehydrated.  I am depleted.  For now, I’ll sleep.

In my dreams, I’m walking on the beach.  My toes revel in the soft, warm sand.  The wind on my face assures me I’m alive.  As the cool water washes over my feet, I sink into the earth.  I am connected to this world.  I am committed to this path on which I walk.  Behind me, I leave a trail.  Evidence of my actions.  Looking ahead, I am happy.  I am content.  I know there is warmth and safety where I’m headed.  But where is that?  Where am I?

At that, I return to the raft.  Once again, we are floating, lifeless.  Watching the water around me live, I am jealous.  Might it know something I don’t?  Is it possible that the water knows where it is destined to go?  Does it have a direction?  A plan?  A road map for its journey?

I was getting caught up with my Google Reader today when I came across this post.  Just another post.  Nothing too profound, overall.  However, as with a lot of things, I think half of the “magic” of profundity is in timing.  The reader (in this case, me) has to be in the right place to hear the message.  Today, this is what I read that spoke to me where I am today, this week, right now in my life as a writer. 

2. Write to one person is classic writing advice – which doesn’t make it any less valuable.  Switch off the imagined readers, the reactions, the internet voices, focus on one person… and then write – direct – to them.  I’m now writing my memoir to one of you lucky readers, and it really does make a difference to the way I feel about the writing, and the way the words spill out onto the page.

And…

8. Learn from your gremlins. Wilson reminded me this month not to be afraid of writer’s block because it will take you further – once you’ve opened up your mind.  I’ve probably learned more from my own blocks than anything else this month (and yes, I’m still standing).

This week I struggled with a variety of little pieces.  None of them “clicked”.  Why?  In retrospect (after reading #2), I was trying to write to a COLLECTIVE audience.  I can think of pieces I’ve written to my husband, friends, family, or even TO MYSELF that were raw.  They came alive.  The emotions, even today if I reread them (after pulling them out of my underwear drawer or some other very sophisticated filing system), are still RIGHT THERE.  I read the words and walk back in time to the moment it was written or the moment about which it was written.  My theory is, if it is that powerful to me, it will be powerful to a reader, as well.  Today, I will take this advice to heart and remember it as I write again tonight.

Regarding my second connection, they took the words right from my mind.  As I mentioned above, I struggled with piece after piece this week.  I had some successes, but when I sat down to write a particular sort of piece, it just wasn’t happening.  Many people think of writer’s block as a temporary INABILITY to write.  To me, though, writer’s block is also the inability to move on.  Not unlike a tunnel through a mountain, you cannot go over or around it.  You have to just GO THROUGH IT.  Suffer through it.  Work your way through it.  Sometimes, that means writing something else.  Today, I wrote a letter.  Earlier in the week, I wrote this after muddling through some more failed attempts:

Today is one of those days when the words are itching the inside of my head — clawing to get out — but I can’t hear them.  Perhaps it’s because I’m tired.  Maybe it’s Little Laura and her perkiness and meddling.  Where did all my words go between last night and today?  Did they lose their voices between then and now?  All I can hear is Mary Poppins and Laura screaming her ABC song — while she kicks, and bounces, and squirms.  And, with the sound of this song, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, I think I shall retire for the night. 

Now, here’s what I love about quick writes like the one above.  Most of it is crap, yes.  However, I really like the words, “words are itching the inside of my head — clawing to get out — but I can’t hear them.”  Even at a road block, engine stuck in idle, you can move forward a little bit.  On another day, at another time, I might lift that line and write from it.  See where that road takes me……

My iGoogle page throws big thoughts at me on a daily basis via a Daily Literary Quote gadget.  I love it.  Somedays it is more profound than others.  Some days it seems to speak directly to my day, as though iGoogle Oompa Loompas planned it that way.  (They do spy on us, you know.)

Anyhow…here’s today’s quote.  My head is hurting just thinking about it.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend a while back about art and galleries and all sorts of smart person thinking.

Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant.  It is not in itself the life more abundant.  It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself.  In becoming an end it defeats itself.

Henry Miller

Let’s chew on that for a while.  It’s good to think hard sometimes.  Think hard, until your head hurts.

I’ve read a few posts and a few chapters in books focused on finding material.  I must admit, there have definitely been days when I’ve struggled and grasped for material.  There have been many times in my life when I’ve thought (or said aloud), “I’d love to write.  I just don’t know what I’d write about…”

And then, there are days like today.  Someone has opened the floodgates and I could write forever.  I think back to my teaching and I hear myself telling my students, “Writers see the world differently.  They live more vividly than other people.  They see everything, feel everything, experience everything as something they could write about.”

I challenged myself, just a few moments ago, as I was washing my face and brushing my teeth (telling myself it was time for bed regardless of the work I had yet to complete), to test myself.  Take my own advice.  I will write about washing my face.

Here’s what comes to mind:

I close each day with a cleansing.  It begins with the muffling sounds of running water.  Water not running at an easy jog, but a sprint. The kind of running water that drowns noises around you.

As I wait for the water to warm, I stare blindly at my reflection, thinking hard.  I think of my face.  My day.  My tomorrow.  My family.  My heart.  My bed.  My books and my writing.  Without thinking, as the water warms, I pass the washcloth between my hands.  Back and forth. Squeezing. Shaping. Feeling for the warmth desired.

Once satisfied, my face is awakened back to reality by the cool, smooth, sweetness of cleanser.  I massage my skin, gently fighting stubborn mascara as I toss the events of the day around in my mind.  With each up and down stroke of my hands, I peel back a layer of thoughts.  As my skin is cleansed, so is my consciousness.

The texture of the washcloth, as it peels off a layer of pollutants from my tender face, pulls me back from the past and towards the future.  It will not be long before I find myself here once again.  Between then and now, much will transpire.  Am I prepared?  Will I be ready?  What should I expect from the world tomorrow?

The warm water rinses me clean.  I begin the healing process.  First, moisturizer.  Second, sleep.  Between the two, many, many deep breaths.  The cool, smooth comfort of my sheets.  The soft, supple support of my mattress.  The forgiveness of darkness.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for the blessings of my day.  Allow me, tonight, to forgive myself for my weaknesses and mistakes.  Grant me the wisdom to learn from those shortcomings so I may do better tomorrow.  Bless me with the clarity of sunshine in the morning as I wake, and allow me to move forward in this journey.  I pray I begin this day cleansed and fresh; ready to love, ready to teach, ready to accept my fate.

Amen.

**From start to finish — approximately 15 minutes.**

Check this out…

The restaurant will be busy, filled with hurried corporate diners.  Waiters and waitresses will zoom past our table in fast forward. 

But, time will move slowly at our table.  In the air, charged with electricity and magnetism, that hovers above our stemmed water glasses and cloth napkins, words will spread smoothly between us like butter on bread.

We will lose track of time and linger over coffee as the lunch rush subsides.  As the restaurant quietens, our feelings will grow louder – filling the void in our ears.  We’ll season our time with laughter and quiet smiles.  We’ll soothe hurt feelings and catch up on half a lifetime.  Each of us, never wanting to forget this day, will privately memorize each other’s face.  We may never meet again.

As the sunlight matures, turning the white tablecloth to a golden yellow, we’ll pay our tab and slowly emerge from our quiet niche. 

The world will be abrupt and coarse compared to us as we make our way to the lobby.  There, we will outlive the remainder of the day and continue into the night, without tiring.  The sounds around us will fade from the busy hubbub of weeknight sounds.  From cell phones, travelers checking in, and valets fetching cars to the hush of the night staff’s whispered voices.  All we will hear, though, is ourselves.  Our tears as we speak of loneliness and wounds, both new and old.  Our joy as we share memories of less burdensome times.  Our thoughts and wonders as we reflect on the world around us.  We will entertain our hearts and our minds with each other’s company and conversation.

And, when the last darkness of night fades and morning emerges, we will recede.  Like a crab, we will retract into the safe privacy of our shell.  For the first time in what feels to be decades, we will not feel alone.

I am working hard.  I struggle daily.  If my hands do not meet a keyboard or put pen to paper, I battle with my writing, my craft, in my mind. 

There are not enough hours in the day.  The world is my distraction; and my inspiration, the same.  If only to have a ticker-tape flooding from my ears – as I am CONSTANTLY writing, working, thinking, feeling.  Listening to the words unfold in my mind like a quilt – waiting for me to wrap up in them and warm myself with their unique pattern and design.  Words are the calico of my life.

I am sneaky.  I hide my  notebooks, shut down the screen, and close off my betrayals from the world.  I should be grading.  I should be cleaning.  I should be reading, washing, anything but writing.  But, if I do not write, I betray myself.

I punish myself by withholding my words.  When the water is high and my legs are weary from treading in place, I forbid it.  I cannot write until I am productive.  Duties first, indulgences last.

But then, I dare imagine the day when my duty will be to write.  Will my feelings change?  Will I still desire it?  Still lose myself to the world within the cool white of a blank page?

And, what of the readers?  Will they lose themselves to the world within the black ink on my page?  Will the font, for them as for me, dissolve into the colorful world my letters write?

I went for a jog alone on the beach this morning, though I never felt alone.  The sky was enormous and beautiful.  The temperature was perfect.  It was amazing.  It reminded me of a quick practice write I wrote this summer, so I came home and dug it out.  The prompt was to write of a favorite place: no edits, no corrections, no stops.

As an adult, I seek sanctuary at the beach.  I enjoy it at all hours of the day, alone or with company.  There is something – some change – that occurs as I cross the dunes via boardwalk.  Be I lugging a wagonload, or traveling solo, the world fades to the back burner — no, the warming drawer — by the time I reach the soft, loose, hot sand.  Time slows.  The sun feeds my soul and the waves wash away my stresses and worries.

Daddy used to say that salt water was good for a wound – it has an antiseptic effect and helps it heal.  This is true in more ways than one.

As a teenager, I can remember laying on the beach with my beau and feeling my senses awaken.  Everything is heightened by the radiant heat and rhythmic rolling of the waves.  The flashes of skin and muscle are teasing, taunting, tantalizing.

As a mother, I’m rejuvenated by the joy and energy that oozes from my daughters as they live and play carelessly.

There’s something freeing about sand.  The reversibility and temporariness of it.  Write in it – wash it away.  Build something – knock it down.  Dig in it – fill it in.  As you bury yourself, so you bury your frets.  Lying with your toes piddling with an impression in the sand.  Watch the sand settle in the edges of your toenails and cling scantily to the curve of your calves and the back of your knees.  There’s nothing better.

Focus on the horizon.  Tun it all out.  Quick – see the bird.  Its smooth black head with platinum accents on stark white feathers.  To be that bird.  What must your days encompass?  A brief flight here and there?  Scanning and searching for a few good fish.  A smooth, cool flight; rocking your body to maneuver and maintain.

Close your eyes.  Listen to the radio next to you.  What on Earth are they listening to?  Does it matter?  No.

How long since you thought of something that REALLY matters?

I love the beach.

How frustrating.  My first time trying to share poetry and this darn blog won’t allow me to format it how I’d like.  So, in order to preserve the pausing intended to be created by a stanza break, I’ve inserted lines.  Forgive, please.  It really bothers me to share it this way, but it will just have to do.

They just walked away.

They stood from the table and

walked away.

_______________

Glasses half full.

Food, still on the table.

Napkins haphazardly lain aside their places.

There were to be more courses served.

More to come.

Yet, they turned away.

Silently. And continued alone.

______________

Now, the table sits alone.

Preserved.

______________

Silently.

Independently.

Unaware.

They each return to the table.

Pull out their chair.

And they would softly sit.

Silent.

Still.

Scenes from the past and future play out before their eyes.

_________________

Until,

Just as silently,

They rise to leave again.

Leaving no evidence of their visit.

No trail to be discovered.

Completely unaware of the other’s visit.

The table, still untouched.

_________________

Too much distance now.

Too much time.

The water is warm.  The rush from the faucet numbs my ears to ambient noises, allowing my thoughts my full attention.  Faraway thoughts.  Back and forth my balance shifts,  left and right, as I wash, rinse, lie, wash, rinse, lie.  My center of balance, like a moral compass, a magnetic force within my core.  Through my thoughts rises a song and I release it gently.  There is calm in this simple chore.  In the kitchen, a cool serenity accompanies my solitude.  From the distance, laughter rises up above the television chatter and roaring water.  Childish squeals pull me in from my distant orbit.  I am home again, realizing my journey.  I wonder if they missed me — if they even noticed I was gone. 

Breathe. Breathe.  Slow myself.  Slow my heart from racing.  My mind from spinning.  My Self from tumbling.  This roller coaster has taken an unexpected turn.  My palms sweaty and foot shakey, the motion in my mind coming alive in my limbs.  Where has this fleeting courage come from?  Where was this match that struck my world hiding?  What will be left in the ashes of this growing bonfire for me to sift through?

My, though, how warm it is.  On a cold and frosty eve, how I welcome this familiar glow.  Radiant heat spreading to every corner of my life.  As my heart thaws, it is rejuvenated.  I stretch.  A gentle tug at the seams — careful not to extend too far, fearful to tear the threads.

Be still.  Be patient.  Enjoy.