Sunday, November 12, 2006

Bubbles (My Poems): A Mid-Autumn Night's Dream


A Mid-Autumn Night's Dream

A friend beckoned me to Cabo San Lucas. I wasn't sure.
"Come and see it. Then decide if you want to go."

There were islands there now. We could hop to each
by wading through crystalline waters.
Total wade time was six minutes.

There were warm breezes awakening the palms.
The edges of the brown sand melted into blue-green ocean.
My toes broke into the shimmer of the sand,
leaving an imprint to be washed away momentarily.
The air lifted and lightened everyone.

"I will stay!" I decided.
Yet, I only have the clothes on my back.
I'm not ready for swimsuit season.
My daughter is dressed only in an orange swimsuit.
What about food? Everyone else brought bhel-puri.
My husband and I now have to help construct
the underground passage to the islands.
A menage of friends, parents and Disney princesses
came to my side. It would be fine.
Think of the six minute wad.

So, I stayed until I awakened.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As a side note, this dream obviously indicates how much I long for a vacation! I'm happy to announce I'm slowly stepping out of my writing funk. (Thanks for putting up with the simple poem above!)
  • Reading Hillary R Clinton's autobiography is a good mental palette cleanser. Historical and political Americana is always good for encouraging creativity. I don't find myself comparing my own writing to hers.
  • Colored my hair one rich mahogany color. It was kinda uneven with some touch ups in the middle, plus natural summer highlights. Only two people noticed and they are really good friends. :-)
  • Speaking of hair, I plan to grow out my bangs. Last summer, I ran into a hair stylist I used to go to in college. He said, "Are you growing out your bangs?" I told him no and gave my standard instructions for my bangs. He made a face. I asked, "Wait, why did you make that face?" He thought I should grow them. Well, fine, but not today. I have a big party tonight. So, against his better judgement, he cut them and gave me a fabulous hair cut (got lots of compliments!). Anyway, now I'm going to take his suggestion. I've had bangs since I was in college. No wonder people say "You look the same!" to me. If it doesn't look right, then off with them. It's only hair.
  • I'm taking Monday off. My plans are to work on 2 articles and go to Marshall's to look for a new purse. There has been something especially freeing to tell people at work, "I'm going to be out on Monday." In reality, it's 8 hours. However, with my job the impact of missing 1 day could be actually 2 days worth. But, they'll survive.
  • The Democrats have taken over the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi is the first female Speaker of the House (in line for Presidency right after Dick Cheney!), Rick Sentorum is officially not representing me, my values or my state and Rumsfeld is gone! Britney came to her senses and kicked out the dead weight. Astrologers have been predicting November to be a critical month for positive changes. I think these changes on the national level give me assurance about upcoming changes on the personal level.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Block and Write


How ironic my 101th post should be about writer's block.

I usually tell people there's no such thing as writer's block. It's all self-imposed. Truckers don't have truckers' block. They just keep on truckin'. Writers have to keep on writing.

Since last Spring there's been a lot of things in my life on the homefront, family and work. I feel I've had to shoulder a lot of emotional and sometimes, physical burdens. I have had to be strong for a lot of people. Some of it has gotten better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Others are still open and all we can do is hope for the best, knowing it will all come together in time. Nothing in life is permanent. Bad times end like good times end.

I feel that my creativity has been a victim of this unexpected stress. It's been sucked out. I've lost passion for writing and tapping into my creative Spirit. It sounds very Oprah-esque, but I really do believe in my creative Spirit.

When I write poetry, I close my eyes and type. I listen to my thoughts, not editing or correcting, just listening and writing. Oftentimes I open my eyes and am amazed by what I've written. I've found old poems and do not remember writing them, though it's definitely me. (Ok, now my faithful readers are saying "chick's gone psycho from the stress." Maybe.). I would write a few poems a week - sitting in a weekly meeting, waiting for a file to unzip or process. Whenever and wherever it struck me to write, I wrote.

Last April, I got organized about my writing and tapped into my project management skills. Organizing my poems was an overwhelming task. I have them on disks, on work laptop, home PC, work notebook, pieces of paper in the kitchen and wherever I was when the creative spirit moved me. My other problem was I would come across Calls for Submissions and would miss the deadlines.

I estimated I had 16 hours of poetry compilation into one master document. I don't have 16 hours to spare in my life. However, I do have 1-2 hours over 8 days so I could handle that. I created a Word document table to track submissions, highlighting upcoming dates, contact info and recording what work I sent (filename, date, etc.) I was quite on top of this and saw immediate successes to being organized. I started categorizing and indexing my 200 poems.

Now, it's Fall and the stress of this summer has zapped me. I was bringing working on spreadsheets rather than my creative efforts. I've had to write "Missed Deadline" on my tracking form.

I need to get back into my creative efforts, but lately my work has been book reviews, articles and blogs. I don't know if anyone has noticed by I'm posting other people's poems and not my own anymore. I preferred to redesign my blogsite rather than write when I had a quiet evening to myself. I picked up an anthology of poetry off my bookshelf and was so disinterested. I'm actually reading Hilary Clinton's book right now. (I've had my head in Rohinton Mistry, anthologies by Indian, British writers and multiracial writers for the last few months. I need to clear my palette).

I'm not sure what I need to do to kick start and wake up my creative Spirit. I've trying doing a Yahoo Search on "Writer's Block" and found some "ok" websites that tell you basic things. I searched "find passion" and ended up with personal classified listings (oops! wrong search words!).

I used to write about this stuff and give advice to others. I have a few books for writers. My favorites are Gail Sher, "One Continuous Mistake: Four Noble Truths for Writers" and Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird".

However, I don't know if that's enough. I need to find that spark, a fire, ma raison d'etre for writing. I think I need to do something different in my life - take a trip, take a risk or step away from the uncomfortable rut.