Today, I am a writer. Not only do I do this thing to Live, but I do this thing for A Living. Oh, I often think I’m getting it wrong. I sometimes feel far behind everyone else or that there is a secret formula that I haven’t quite cracked that will make everything that little bit easier. I’ve written things that went on to be quoted, like “Just be more you. That’s the solution,” and it got printed on earth-toned organic loungewear in 20201. You have to get smart about your use of what you are calling poetry if you are a poet who wants to keep an apartment/ kid2 / eat food every day / pay your bills. You can’t lie around waiting for the muse to strike, oh no. You have to find the colours and shapes that resonate; find the unmistakable beauty in the awful everyday. It must make a strong impression on you. Mate, it has to knock you out. As you lie prone in bed wondering how you’re going to do this - really get up and do this…you have to consider the six panes of glass built into the door to your bedsit - three sitting on three - marvelling at how the light falls in, how the trees are so themselves. Or thoughts to that effect. Don’t take me at my word.
You could also just eat or watch Hulu.
…
Or eat junk.
I used to war against the Blues as though they were something I needed to solve and that you really shouldn’t feel this way if you want to be productive and social and a Real Adult. But these days, I think it’s just a way of processing beauty and terror in the real, truest way at the time with the stuff you’ve got at the time and what could be truer than that? Sometimes, my hormones act up, and sometimes, my chemicals are down, but I study the blues and the news and the difficulty, observing them the way you would shadows dancing on a lake.
Unless it’s so, so bad that I’m only managing to watch Hulu. Or eat junk.
I live in California (right now). I could drive to the beach if I wanted. I don’t want. I want to wake up when the world outside is still black, hearing the birds commune with each other. I want to roam around whatever space I am occupying, touching things in the dark, reminding myself I am here, that Aliveness is not only about consuming and planning and driving your car to places to do more consuming and more planning; it’s about feeling with your hands. Finding new things to fall in love with. At any one moment, there’s always more. More! I remember standing up at school and announcing to everyone there that I was going to be a writer, and everyone tittered behind their hands because we were twelve, and it just wasn’t cool. But writing was already the conclusion…it felt absolutely logical. It felt right. And even when I am struggling and have to weigh it up and piece it all out with a million other taxing activities, it still feels absolutely logical. It still feels right.
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