Yesterday vs. today
Yesterday: Woke up way too early with ambitions to write my face off with pages for Good Ground. It didn't pan out. Lifted some weights, noodled around on the Internet. Tried at least three times to actually write, get into it. Didn't work. Before heading to the Big Top of Capitalism, I reread the suicide note. I have done wiser things. Listening to Grandaddy's Sumday on the 690 and just balling, which is strange, because while that record is not exactly sunny, neither is it the maudlin emotionally-overdone kind of schmaltz you'd think would inspire full-on gasping type crying. Labored for 8 hours. It's strange to be in public and be unable to stop yourself from having your emotional reactions. To interact with strangers who are paying just a hair too little attention to notice what's happening in your face.
*
Today: Woke up at a more standard hour. Typed out a sentence which popped into my head from nowhere; who knows if I'll use it. Started writing and got about 2500 words over the next 3 hrs. Went for a long run up Corporal Welch, past turned-over fields that will bear corn in a few months. Past the Boom Boom Mex Mex Taqueria, which is on the corner of Howlett Hill and Corporal Welch, in a squat white building with a sunken parking lot; it may've once been an antique shop or gas station with the gas pumps long since ripped out. Smells wonderful up there now. Here's hoping it has good eats. And past the Howlett Hill Presbyterian Church, which I believe has celebrated its sesquicentennial sometime in the last few years. Down the long hill of Munro Rd., back up to the house. Made a stellar sandwich. Cleaned up. Sat down. Here I am.
*
And what I realized via this competition between yesterday and today is that my writing amounts to a kind of shield. The pages I fill up are like shields that deflect the thoughts of this tragedy and thoughts of my own personal doubts and fears and worries, like, kerTWANG! As long as I've written something, these things kertwang away harmlessly. But if for some reason I haven't done a poem, haven't done some paragraphs, then I am effectively unarmored. At least one good friend will clutch his brow on reading this, for it might not be a very good way to go about things from the novel's / the poems' points of view. I've been trying for years now to be maximally prolific, and arguably this is to the detriment of the work and sometimes myself. But what I think I'm learning is that it's not just about the work: it's about me as well. Does anyone else experience this paradox? Wherein your mental health seems bound to something you must do, something that some people will tell you will suffer even if it might help you yourself out? I'm trying to parse this issue out. This inspiration vs. habit issue's been on my mind in one form or another since January 2000, when I decided I would write every day. And I'm still of the mindset that habit breeds inspiration. If I just waited for inspiration, I might never put words down again. Pisco Poet Liz H-F told her students that "there's no magical mystical moment" - poems / prose depend upon dogged, painful, habitual effort. Poems almost never spring Athena-like from your forehead (meaning you're Zeus). But what I know now that I didn't know 48 hrs. ago is that writing this novel, writing these poems, while not always easy, is, well, sort of saving me.
*
But then and plus, is it psychologically unadvisable to "shield" oneself away from the things that lay us low? Is this approach to dedicated artistic production tantamount to denial / issue avoidance? If it makes me happy, can it be that bad? I need to put on some music (not Sheryl Crow) and fix a beverage. I have that post-run constriction of the forehead. Not a headache, quite. But close.
*
Today: Woke up at a more standard hour. Typed out a sentence which popped into my head from nowhere; who knows if I'll use it. Started writing and got about 2500 words over the next 3 hrs. Went for a long run up Corporal Welch, past turned-over fields that will bear corn in a few months. Past the Boom Boom Mex Mex Taqueria, which is on the corner of Howlett Hill and Corporal Welch, in a squat white building with a sunken parking lot; it may've once been an antique shop or gas station with the gas pumps long since ripped out. Smells wonderful up there now. Here's hoping it has good eats. And past the Howlett Hill Presbyterian Church, which I believe has celebrated its sesquicentennial sometime in the last few years. Down the long hill of Munro Rd., back up to the house. Made a stellar sandwich. Cleaned up. Sat down. Here I am.
*
And what I realized via this competition between yesterday and today is that my writing amounts to a kind of shield. The pages I fill up are like shields that deflect the thoughts of this tragedy and thoughts of my own personal doubts and fears and worries, like, kerTWANG! As long as I've written something, these things kertwang away harmlessly. But if for some reason I haven't done a poem, haven't done some paragraphs, then I am effectively unarmored. At least one good friend will clutch his brow on reading this, for it might not be a very good way to go about things from the novel's / the poems' points of view. I've been trying for years now to be maximally prolific, and arguably this is to the detriment of the work and sometimes myself. But what I think I'm learning is that it's not just about the work: it's about me as well. Does anyone else experience this paradox? Wherein your mental health seems bound to something you must do, something that some people will tell you will suffer even if it might help you yourself out? I'm trying to parse this issue out. This inspiration vs. habit issue's been on my mind in one form or another since January 2000, when I decided I would write every day. And I'm still of the mindset that habit breeds inspiration. If I just waited for inspiration, I might never put words down again. Pisco Poet Liz H-F told her students that "there's no magical mystical moment" - poems / prose depend upon dogged, painful, habitual effort. Poems almost never spring Athena-like from your forehead (meaning you're Zeus). But what I know now that I didn't know 48 hrs. ago is that writing this novel, writing these poems, while not always easy, is, well, sort of saving me.
*
But then and plus, is it psychologically unadvisable to "shield" oneself away from the things that lay us low? Is this approach to dedicated artistic production tantamount to denial / issue avoidance? If it makes me happy, can it be that bad? I need to put on some music (not Sheryl Crow) and fix a beverage. I have that post-run constriction of the forehead. Not a headache, quite. But close.
posted by Wil at
10:21 AM
3 Comments:
I really don't think you are shielding yourself or denying anything. If anything, I would think that continuing to write habitually would give you a sense of normalcy and structure in your life after experiencing a very devastating event.
Sticking to your writing doesn't mean you care any less about Jon, but that you do see the need to carry on and make some meaning of your own life.
By
junebee, at 11:36 AM
Dear Distruptive Juxtapositioner,
I know this is off topic, but I don't know who else to consult! I was wondering if you could tell me why oyster crackers are called "oyster crackers"? They don't have oysters in them--or pearls. I've asked all of my friends and none of them know.
By
Anonymous, at 12:33 PM
Junebee: thanks. I tend to agree. I'm not a psychologist or therapist, and I wonder what if one of those accredited individuals would have a different opinion, but, for now, I think that this approach is simply the approach I've got to take. It's hard to deliberately be different... although who knows, maybe the time to do so will come.
Werner: Ah, okay, cool cool. Let's see what I can turn up. As best I can determine, there's no definitive rationale for calling oyster crackers "oyster crackers." They contain no tincture of oyster or oyster ingredient. I think they earned that sobriquet simply and coincidentally by virtue of the dish with which they were served - i.e. oyster stew and/or clam chowder (according to Wikipedia). That said, it'd be an oversight to not mention the shape: the shape came first, from a Trenton NJ-based cracker factory, and it sounds as though the recipe occurred somewhat by accident. But the shape was distinctive and charming enough, and yielded a cracker handy enough, to win it a nickname. Final analysis? My $'s on the name deriving first and foremost from its partner chowder / soup, and secondly from its size and shape.
By
Wil, at 5:54 PM
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