9 to 5 Poet

On Sunday, after we returned from Puerto Vallarta, I did some laundry.  Then, after putting a load in, I started to do some writing, which required headphones from my iPod.  But I couldn’t find my iPod — until I remembered where I last saw it.  In the pocket of my gray hoodie. The same hoodie that was now swimming in the soapy brine of my washing machine.  When I fished it out, it was thoroughly soaked.  Apparently, when you submerge an iPod in cold sudsy water for 10 minutes, it dies.  Who knew?

So, I’ve been living iPod-less for four days. It feels like giving up caffeine or crack.  I used my iPod for two basic functions:  music while I exercise (to take my mind off of exercising) and music for my 25 minute bus commutes to and from work. 

I only exercised on Monday (due to some writing deadlines I’ve been pushing), but I actually had to think on my half an hour walk.  Not hum along to Ani or Tori, but think about what I was seeing and feeling.  It was nice to notice the landscape in my neighborhood, the two squirrels trying to “do it” in the road, the sky growing pink above the Basilica. 

My bus commute has been more challenging.  I obviously travel the same route every day.  In the morning, I share the bus with many of the same passengers.  It’s kind of boring.  I realize that my iPod allows me to withdraw from the world.  Pretty much everyone is wearing one, so we can all retreat into our little self-pods and ignore each other.  At times this is valuable, such as when the crazy guy is ranting three seats away.  But last night I listened to a son describe to his father the picture he drew in day care that day. I got to see their physical resemblance and watch as the dad draped his arm over his son. Would I have missed that in my musical solitude?  Probably.

So, now I’m stuck.  Do I buy another vial of musical heroin or do I live with the silence? As soon as I realized my iPod had died, I was scoping the websites for the best deals.  I think I’m arguing for an iPod-less life, since I really don’t know if I should spend the money on a new one.  And I like being able to think and hear my thoughts.  (Even though that scares me and I don’t really care for the banality of most of my thoughts.) 

I’m interested to hear from other writers who choose to pod or not pod.  Why do you pod?  Do you limit your podding?  Why don’t you pod? What’s the trade-off?

Most importantly, do you think I should get an 80G iPod, because I can find it really cheaply, even though I only have a 60G hard drive on my laptop or should I just get the 30G and live with less?

Sigh. 

Above is my view of the Minnesota State Capitol building while we waited in line for the Obama rally in St. Paul.  My friend and I waited two hours, only to be turned away when we were two thirds of the way to the front door of the Xcel Energy Center.  Instead, we heard half the speech on MPR and watched the rest on CNN. So, I can tell my future children and grandchildren that I almost made it. 

Oh well.  If you crop the screen crawl at the bottom, it totally looks like I was there.  Right?

My worldly responsibilities got the best of me.  Unfortunately, I missed Friday through Sunday of NaPoWriMo, because I was working on other things. I think the problem for me was that poetry takes a bit of attention and I put my attention in so many different directions.  So, for now, I’m surrendering on NaPoWriMo, although I may crank out a few more quatrains on the bus this week.

So here is my final count for the project:

24 Poems Written
1 Prose Poem
1 Found Poem
12 Quatrains
4 Free Verse
1 Syllabic
2 Batches of American Sentences
2 Haiku
1 Ghazal

Overall, this is a darn good count and I’m proud of it. This is probably more poetry than I’ve written in 2-3 months, so I think that this project was still a success, even if I had to surrender with 6 days left.  Maybe next year I’ll go the distance…

After weeks of dipping below zero, way below zero, it’s 31 today and feels like summer. The sun is shining, the icy gray snow banks are beginning to melt, and I’m feeling like something should be loosening inside of me.

This winter has been rough — rough on my skin, which seems to be chapped and flaking off in patches, rough on my creative life, since I don’t feel like I have any creative projects really going. When it remains that cold for that long, I feel like I just shut down and retreat into a pseudo-hibernation. My thoughts skim the surface of eat-sleep-work-TV-repeat, without delving any deeper. While some people might be forced to a kind of self-reflection in winter, I simply harden and go into survival mode. I try to imagine what it was like to live here, before central heating, electricity, and the comfort of the metropolis. I wouldn’t have been able to make it.

I’m hoping that this small glimpse of sunshine will help recharge my batteries a bit. I may even walk around one of my neighborhood lakes tomorrow, if it remains this warm. The sad thing is that I know it’s only the end of February and we still have one more month (at least) to go.

So that I don’t sound too much like Debbie Downer (meow, meow — for those of you who have seen the sketch), here is a list of the small joys I’ve had in the last couple of weeks…

Season One of How I Met Your Mother — Predictable, but hilarious
Season Two of Big Love — Did I mention that I was watching TV)
My grudging enjoyment of Eat, Pray, Love
Going to my alma mater for graduate readings — although they do make me feel like a slacker. There were many brilliant writers there including, Michele Campbell, Beth Mayer, and James Henderson, to name a few.
Kimya Dawson’s Remember That I Love You
Seeing the orange sunrise in the gray sky in the morning
This article in last week’s Onion — I think it was written about my cats
Facebook’s Texas Hold ‘Em — I suck, but I love it
The roasted garlic/crusty bread/cheese we’re going to have with board games tonight (and the beer)
My impending trip to Tennessee next weekend — please let it be over 40 degrees
Being able to sign up for cell phones with Credo when I return

Okay, I’m starting to feel like I can handle four or five more weeks of winter. I think.

Lately, I haven’t been writing as much poetry as I would like. I understand that this is a temporary situation. Since I’ve been paying closer attention to my writing habits, I’ve noticed that my writing output seems to ebb and flow. There are times when I’m “on” and I write up a storm, 2-3 poems a week. And then there are times when I stumble along, writing little to nothing. I can’t predict when these happen, other than to say that one tends to follow the other.

I’ve learned that I just need to relax into the writing slump, and trust that the writing will return. So, instead of writing, I’ve been doing other things, including reading, writing articles, and volunteering my time. (Besides working my job, naturally.) One of the many books I’m reading now is CrazyBusy by Ned Hallowell. Dr. Hallowell is a leading researcher on Attention Deficit Disorder and this book follows the trend of multitasking and spreading yourself too thin as the new social norm. It’s very enjoyable and easy to read and I find myself in some of his descriptions. Okay, lots of his descriptions.

Here’s one that particularly hit home for me:

“If being busier than I’d like to be is the price I have to pay, most of us seem to say, then so be it. After all, modern life is worth it. Life’s never been this exciting.

But if we’re not careful, we’ll get so busy that we forget to take the time to think and feel. We won’t have the extended periods of time required to complete a thought, develop a conversation, or reflect upon a complex set of emotions.”

This passage reminded me of W.S. Merwin’s quote about poetry that I posted last week. Perhaps, rather than filling my time with other activities when I’m not writing, I should be slowing down. Perhaps my slightly addictive multitasking is drawing energy away from writing.

Hallowell suggests prioritizing as a way to slow down. His argument is that you can only give your energy and attention to so many spheres of your life. After a certain threshold (and everyone’s threshold is different), you become less effective. He says that you should know where your energy is going, rather than rushing around and spending it without thinking.

When I think about my priorities, I know that my energy tends to go to my lower, yet more insistent, priorities while my true priorities get ignored. I’m getting much better at this, but it is challenging to realign my actions with my intentions. If I had to prioritize my life right now, I would say that my top priorities are:

1) Marriage
2) Writing Pursuits (includes poetry, blogging, articles,in that order)
3) Work
4) Friendships
5) Volunteering
6) Other Creative Pursuits (includes reading, photography, and art making, in that order)

I am happy to say that my work is no longer #1 and I don’t behave like it is. (Whew! Hooray for less stressful jobs.) Listing my priorities in this way, I’m not exactly sure what takes up my time. I watch a little too much TV, I spend a lot of time online, not blogging, but Facebook-ing and such. But I’m honestly not sure where it all goes. (Bad sign.) Notice TV isn’t even on there!

This week, I’d like to spend my time closer to how my priorities are listed. While I believe I do a better job than I did a year ago, I certainly think I can do better. I am going to commit myself to a week of slowing down, and realigning my energies. I’m declaring this week, for me, Slow Down Week. I will try to spend my time working on my top priorities, rather than on the “other stuff” that seems to be rushing in.

From my Poetry Speaks Page-a-Day Calendar, for January 15:

“Any work of art makes one very simple demand on anyone who genuinely wants to get in touch with it. And that is to stop. You’ve got to stop what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and what you’re expecting and just be there for the poem no matter how long it takes.”

– W.S. Merwin

My first thought when I saw this, while checking emails and voicemail messages simultaneously: maybe I’m not stopping enough. After all, this was yesterday’s quote.

Okay, it was inevitable, so brace yourselves.

Today marks the halfway point of what we call in our house “nanabooboo.” (We can never get the letters in all the right permutations, so its become that instead.) I’m glad that I signed up for nanabooboo, because it’s pushed me and challenged me and it’s forced me to focus very intently on my blog. All good things.

But here come’s the whine. I’m tiiiiired!!! I got home after working late, I have an article that’s due tomorrow that’s only written in my head due to some research issues, and I can’t take a bath yet because I have to write something on my blog. Something good. Something interesting. Something literary. Blech. We get this instead.

I haven’t written a lot of non-blog related stuff lately, because I’m blogging. And I even have things I want to write about, but haven’t, like meeting these two people and reading this awesome book. Maybe I’ll get to them. Maybe I want. Okay, I’ll definitely get to the last one soon.

This feels like all the times that I’ve committed to writing in my journal EVERY DAY, because that’s what published writers say that they do. (I secretly think they’re big liars.) Committing to every day writing is hard, because sometimes dang it, I just want to watch tv and go to bed.

I’ll return to non-whining posts tomorrow.

This is not a Poet is a Verb entry about something I did today; it is about something I need to do. I need to be able to focus on one task at a time.

I won’t tell the embarrassing story about the things I forgot to do at home this morning, because I was too busy doing them all at once. But I will say, that as I sat on the bus realizing all the things that I forgot to do and worrying about the things I probably forgot to do that I forgot about, I was thinking also about this week’s Writers Island prompt: Unforgettable. I don’t know if I can write about that prompt this week with a straight face.

The irony is that the art I like to do, poetry and photography and my renewed obsession with collage, requires focus. Most poets describe poetry as the act of focusing on details and relaying them with accuracy. At least, that’s the beginning of poetry. Photography literally requires focus, for the selection and the clarity of the image. While I don’t espouse to be a collage expert by any means, my experience on Sunday allowed me to achieve an almost Zen-like meditative focus as I combed through the heaps of materials to find my images. I love that experience when I am writing when I achieve that kind of focus that is both utterly calm and utterly specifically intense. It is then that I know that I am creating something. In fact, it is through these artistic activities that I become what I want to become: someone who recognizes and reacts to the little details.

At work, of course, I can focus on activities. I am the detail-queen. I can recall data and keep my desk and schedule well-organized. But at home, in my everyday life, this focus falls apart. It’s like I can achieve focus in little bursts, when I have to, but when I relax, my brain goes wobbly and I forget where my keys are or how to put on clothes correctly. These are not the things I forgot today, unfortunately…I think.

I don’t know if this is something that I can change about myself. If it is, I can only try to do better. If it isn’t, then I think I’ll need to create a checklist for myself before I leave for work in the morning.

Like a crazy woman, I signed up for NaBloPoMo this year. (By the way, I hate this abbreviation. It’s so difficult to pronounce.) I signed up about a week ago, and I am of two minds about it.

My initial reaction is dread and fear. What if I run out of things to say? Will I be forced to wax poetic about my pajamas? Or the few TV shows I like? Or the time my dad had us sell Monoracers at Venice Beach? Wait… I better stop now, I might want to use these next month.

But the more I think about it, the more excited I get. Initially, I started this blog as a way to reconnect with my writing. And it has worked marvelously. I’m writing every week, I’ve connected with other writers across the world, and I’m much happier in my creative life. So, if this blog is an extension of and a commitment to my writing life, then posting once every day is just a once a day commitment to my writing life. The more I post, the more I commit to writing. Plus I can stretch my writing muscles by having to write every day. It’s challenging and disciplined. Music to a Capricorn’s ears.

Besides, even if I wake up one night in a cold sweat (despite my pirate pajamas) and realize I need to post an entry, it only takes five minutes or so. Right?

Did Emily Dickinson or Edna St. Vincent Millay ever have days (weeks) where they didn’t feel poetic? Where they just were bone tired and didn’t have the energy to see things with the lyric eye? I suppose, this could be why one was a recluse and the other was a drug addict, but I have a feeling it’s not.

This week is the week where I have two jobs. I still have one week of teaching left at the old job, and I’ve begun working at the new job. So I work for two hours in the morning at the new job, leave at 11:30, commute for half an hour, teach for two hours, commute for another half an hour, then work for three hours at the new job. Gulp.

So all this driving, sitting at computers, last minute grading, completing of human resources paper work, and meeting new coworkers, has left me drooling on the couch, watching all the new must see shows for the fall. (Chuck and Reaper weren’t half bad, even if I was in a drooling state. Or perhaps because I was in a drooling state.)

I want to write poems. I have the desire, somewhere deep in my body. I had inspiration — both Writers Island and the Traveling Poetry Show are giving me prompts galore. But, mostly, I just want to relax and drool.

So, I think tonight, I’m going to try this exercise out of Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write. (I’ve been reading it for a week. It’s kind of her “Just Do It” mantra book, so far.) I’m paraphrasing her directions: In order to get in touch with the writerly side, find a quiet place to sit, and number a list from 1 to 100. Then, fill the list with things that you love. Then, post the list at your writing desk.

I think I’ll try it before falling into bed. If it doesn’t work, I should snap out of this by Friday, my last day at the old job.