They Say You Learn About Yourself by Writing

This blog generally grows from a wisp of an idea. I'm coming at it today wondering if anything can be learned personally from having blogged now for over a decade. I think that might be better left to a psychologist, or maybe now an AI program that can analyze patterns in writing. A word cloud, perhaps?

Overall, there's a thread here. I aim for the inspirational, when in fact my writing life right now entails little more than some personal journaling. I'm not a quitter, but my fiction output has been next to nothing for more than a year. Life gets in the way, I could say, or lean on some other trope: you'll bounce back, just take a pass, it's a phase, better luck next time. Whatever.

This doesn't feel like writer's block. It feels more like a writing seizure. Is there medicine for that? I woke up one morning this week and realized it's November, the month for the fun group novel-writing sprint, NanoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. But even NanoWriMo has been having some pain-points. Still, I used to highly anticipate participating in the community-wide event to produce a novel in 30 days. I totally forgot about it this year.

2024. Boo. I could chalk up my seizure to this shitty year. Events went from bad to bad. Without getting into the terrible details, the year comes to an end after a major weather disaster where I live, just one of the many doggie downers. 

What am I learning from writing this post? An overall feeling that it is time to hang up this blog. That's not what I was thinking when I started this post. I've used this space to kinda think out loud, be the courageous seat-of-my-pants blogger-type, and drive some audiences to my work. But I don't often take my own blogging advice. Writing is a damn hard way to live. It's subjective and strange and solitary. The longer I type right here, the more obvious it seems that this is a good time to say good-bye to blogging and feel okay about it.  

So, wow. This post brought on what was bubbling underneath. A feeling to let go. 

This is good. This is good. Space opens up to do something else. 

You're great for having hung out with me over the years or for reading me for the first time. Browse old posts if you want. Thanks for reading me, at all. Thanks for commenting, if you did.  

Best to you. Hug your people. 

Catching a Poem

Catching a poem is not like catching a plane.

A poem doesn't happen on a schedule.

It comes in its own good time, usually not when you've packed your bags, but when you're unpacking, 

leaving a messy ring at your feet of unrecognizable matter never fully decomposed,

no matter how many therapists, or meditation apps, or bike rides, or spans of grace, or turns of a shovel.

On your best days, you pick a way out, clear a path, forge past, speed away, for a while.

But before long, the ground is littered again, some old detris, some new, alongside a few shiny objects that catch your eye.

And make you think 'hmm' and reach in.

'Maybe there's something in here besides the pain.'

Sifting, simply a poem.

Clouds that Form a Hurricane

It'll storm later today. A spring rain. April showers and all that. The dark clouds are moving in. It feels a little like dusk although it's 6 o'clock in the morning. 

For some reason this week, I've been seeing a lot of social media posts about how little people read. (BTW, thanks for reading this; readers get so little recognition these days.) This has me thinking about how difficult it can be to carve out time to read and to write. The pressures on daily survival surmount my best intentions to give writerly pursuits the time of day. And, yes, it doesn't help to see posts about how few of us take time with a book. Why bother writing one?

The last book I read literally was blown from my hands. A few weeks back, I downloaded an ebook on my phone to pass the time on a two-hour plane ride. The story -- a whodunit detective story with a female protagonist -- was kinda outside my normal genre of choice (literary). I'll come back later here and put the name of the title and author (Unbreakable Bond by Gemma Halliday and Jennifer Fischetto). I was impressed by the hooks. Good character development, an intriguing storyline, not too heavy of a subject, and no grotesque violence. Then the plane hit turbulence -- my phone flew up out of my hands and landed in the aisle one seat behind. It was the kind of turbulence that has a person clutching your seat mate's hand without the benefit of introductions. It was terrifying and was an exclamation point to two very difficult weeks.

I'm not a praying person, but that didn't stop me. Wouldn't it be a shitter if life had come to a screeching halt just then? Leave my parents and kids behind? Shudder to think. When I got off the plane, I literally looked white and wanted to fall prostrate on the tarmac (we actually walked across it to get to the terminal). I'd like to say that the experience shook me so much that I re-evaluated my entire life. It didn't. People do that, you know. Have life-changing experiences from trauma or fright. What I've found is that it isn't one event that turns me. It's the clouds that gather and eventually form a hurricane. 

Lately, there are just so many clouds. The world is fraying, and the uncertainty and cruelty and disconnect turn my stomach. Sad situations on every channel. What is the answer? To do something inward? Make peace with yourself, cultivate Zen? Or make an outward motion? Run for office, raise money for charity, hell, start a charity. What I should do is go back to writing. I have no conceit that it makes anything better except that it does. It does with me. And I'll give money. To people and animals. I'll continue to love. My family and friends and cats and sweetheart. And, I'll write, plant seeds of hope and identity, here and elsewhere, and tell it like I see it.