Writing back to the heart of me

Having "one of those days" and wondering what has me all off. Of course I know what external factors contribute to the melancholy, but that doesn't make it feel any better, nor does it explain why I just can't shake it. I tried to rally myself to go out and be social but just couldn't get that together. Tried some retail therapy, tried getting some things crossed off of my to do list, tried some pampering, tried prayer... It all helped a little, but that deep-down blah feeling just wouldn't give.

Then I realized it: I haven't been writing. Like, at all. Haven't been making time for it, haven't even been reading other people's work lately. And because writing is my way of checking back in with myself when I feel out of whack, I think that may be a big part of the problem today.

I came across the following quote today: "Meditation is the tongue of the soul & the language of our spirit.”--Jeremy Taylor. So true. For me, sitting and writing sometimes helps me plug back into what my soul/spirit are trying to say to me. Neglecting to write often leaves me feeling like I'm out of touch with myself, like I've been ignoring that inner voice for so long that I've gotten a little lost.

Recently I've put a lot of time and effort into goals like studying for and taking the bar, getting my office at work organized, cleaning out the garage at home, etc. I have so much more to do, and so little time, and so little money, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. But even when I'm successfully getting things accomplished, I feel like those things aren't meaningful if I'm not also in tune with what's most important to me.

Perhaps all else will start to flow together if I first and foremost remember my heart, which has a deep passion for writing and the creative release it provides for me. And at the same time I remind myself that my largest goal for the year is yet to be achieved: to write a book. I need to refocus on this, both because it's cheaper than the therapist's couch (I know), and because it's who I am. I got an encouraging note recently reminding me that sometimes other people enjoy my writing too (thanks Ratha!), so that gives me all the more reason to motivate myself to jump back into the craft and get myself back into the writing practice. Perhaps this will help me get it together and feel a little more "in touch."

Yeah.

I feel better now.

Thanks for reading.

Performing Tonight!

I've been trying to keep the steam going with my writing as things have picked up at work, in my personal life, and as I've tacked on new goals for the year, including taking the Washington Bar this Summer. Yiiiii, it's like I'm not satisfied unless I have an overflowing plate!

But to keep the creative juices flowing, I decided to respond to this call for artists for a show, which is tonight, and it just kind of occurred to me that I'm excited about performing! It has been such a busy time it's like I don't allow myself to get excited about the next moment until it's upon me.

Event info:
Speak to Me: Visual Art Poetry Fusion Show at C Art Gallery. If you're in Seattle, come through!

Thursday, June 3, 2010
5:30-7:30 p.m.
C Art Gallery
855 Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, Washington 98144

The premise is pretty cool. I've been to plenty of shows where a visual artist will create a new piece as a poet spits, but this is the other way around. The poet will perform a piece inspired by a painting. The painting will be presented and the poet will perform.

For more seasoned peformers, this may sound like no big deal. But participating in this is great stretching for me and my creative work. First, I have been wanting to put myself out there a bit more lately. Second, usually I just kinda sit back and say, "What shall I write about?" Or on a whim I decide, "I'm going to go to this Slam/Open Mic, and I'm going to perform X piece." This was a different experience for me. I had no idea what the artist's piece would look like, who the artist was, whether I'd find inspiration in it, etc. And I had to put myself out there by providing prior work as a means for them to select me as one of the 6 poets.

I'll be interested to see what the artist thinks of my interpretation of her piece. Can't share it now, but I'll post an update on how the whole thing went a bit later.

I always find that when I'm in the company of writing talent, it inspires me to keep pushing myself and keep sharpening my craft. So if nothing else, even if I straight up bomb tonight (which I won't, y'all, come on!) I'll be inspired.

Thanks for reading!

Dream Sequence

The other night I had a dream that I was dying. In my dream, one minute I was sitting down and the next I was falling down slowly. As I fell, my vision became cloudy. Outside of my body, I watched my body, which was that of an older man black man with big eyes and fine lines, bend at the waist and come to rest on a white miasma. My eyes, covered in a milky white film, were open and stared back unseeingly at me. It looked as if my body were shutting down.

Before dying, I had been thinking about dying. I was considering why I should continue to live. In particular, I was thinking about a friend of mine who had passed on recently. I was considering what I had that she didn’t have. Why should I be around instead of her. It was immediately after I thought this that my dream body started to die.

While my body was dying my mind was very active. My mind continued the same debate, what reasons did I have to live and what reasons did I have to die.

There were very few reasons to live. I thought that my family would mourn me and I didn’t want them to suffer and be sad, but from personal experience in dealing with death I determined that they would eventually move on and forget about me. I’ve always been pained when losing a loved one. The pain does not necessarily fade, but you think about it less and the edges of it dulls.

I also thought that there was nothing great I needed to do on this earth, there was no great thing that needed to be accomplished before I die. Interestingly, the fact weighing most heavily in favor of dying was that we will all die eventually. What makes tomorrow any more appealing than today. To live, I was marking time to the inevitable anyway.

Despite all of this I decided that I wanted to live. I can’t remember why I wanted to live, but live I did. My dying body reenergized and my dream changed to something new.

Maybe my dream meant something, maybe there is something I need to finish before dying and fading from memories I might just need to finish my story about my grandmother so that she does not fade from my memories.

Inspiration Times Two

I've written about inspiration in the past and am reluctant to do so again. But, unfortunately, it's the only thing that I can think about. Probably because I am in need of some.

Lately I've been inspired by my oldest niece and nephew. My niece is such a treasure, she is smart, does well in school, and is just really pleasant to be around. I definitely want to do all I can to help her succeed in whatever she wants to pursue.

My nephew, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Like his sister he is smart, but he doesn't do well in school and he is generally disrespectful to the adults in his life.

I don't think it is too surprising that I want to write about my nephew. I've been thinking about incorporating his story into my story about my grandmother. My idea is that I will turn to lessons learned from my grandmother to help inspire him to be a better person. Problem is I don't know that my grandmother or anyone has found out to inspire someone to do better when they think they know it all or think they can get away with being a trouble maker because he's so young.

My hope is that by writing about him and her together I will learn how to inspire him to be a better person.

Window Seat, Womanhood, Final Craziness of my 100 Page Endeavor

Man. I mean, Woman!

I just saw Erykah Badu's Window Seat video. I have been stuck on that song for the past couple of weeks, and seeing the video only enhanced some of the sentiment I took from the song. I just got the sense that it was about freeing yourself and allowing yourself to be yourself, unencumbered by other people's judgment or expectations or demands. I feel like this is what it means to become your own woman. Heck, I just want a window seat... maybe an Amtrak window seat with laptop in tow, where I can write and listen to my i-tunes and watch the scenery shift and just do me!

Speaking of writing and being your own woman, my writing project explores identity through three lenses: girl, woman, and soul, and I've been encountering some difficulty on the Woman front.

I've been writing a lot recently about my girlhood in particular and girlhood generally, and that's been an interesting experience. I took myself back to elementary school, to first crushes, to my first racial awakening, to the little weird things I used to do as a child, to the things I remember about my mom and dad from when I was a little girl. It's been fun reacquainting myself with those parts of me that are still very much present, if subdued, in me.

I've also really enjoyed writing about self from the Soul perspective--what soul is from an artistic point of view as well as the spiritual perspective. There's a lot of room to explore here, lots of corners of myself that I haven't even come around to yet and this exploration of soul has nudged me into these spaces. And here is where I have really been able to meditate on humanity. I have come to very few deep profound insights, but it has been interesting work all the same.

Oddly it's the "woman" piece that has been really difficult for me. I keep running into the subject of love, which is perfectly appropriate in the sense that lots of women come into their identity as a woman when they experience their first love. But I don't want to dwell on that, and in fact I'm beginning to feel like I've hit a brick wall on the whole romantic love tip. I can pinpoint so many more experiences that have shaped and created my identity as a woman, from the difficult career choices I've had to make for myself as an adult, to losing my parents and being forced to understand myself not as anyone's child, but as my own. There's also just the experience of living in this body that reminds me every day that I am a woman--from the way we women have to take care of ourselves to the way we celebrate ourselves and express our femininity in how we walk, what we wear, etc.

So... as I march on through the final stretch of my 30 day, 100 page marathon, my plan is to focus on Woman, to really get into the heart of what I want to say in this section of the project. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading.

Encouragement

Today I talked with my fellow Chroniclers and left the conversation feeling pretty good. I went into the conversation a little nervous because in my mind I hadn't made much progress. I imagined updating them with a whole lot of nothing. After I made my update, however, all I got was a whole lot of encouragement. The ladies told me that maybe I should not put so much energy into focusing on what I'm not doing and instead put that energy into making the most out of what I'm doing.

For example, me I'd like to write more and had been down on myself for my lack of progress. Well now I'm going to take all of my negative feelings and put them into making the most out of the time I do spend writing. In short, I'm going to write when I have the time and feel good about the time I spend writing. I won't spend time feeling bad about the time I'm not spending writing.

I'd like to pass these ideas along to others reading this blog. For those of you pursuing a goal and are feeling a little discouraged -- instead of feeling bad about what you're not doing -- think about what you are doing and focus on doing that well.

Progress Report: Week Two of My Crazy Endeavor

Progress report: 10,175 words, which is about 41 pages based on the standard manuscript page length of 250 words! This is great. This is just one page short of my goal of 42 pages by end of week two. Let me just say, Woop woop!

But then let me actually just go on ahead and slow my roll. I only have 16 days to write the remaining 59 pages, which means i gotta be on point and write about 3.7 pages per day.

Prayer, y'all, prayer.

Shout out to Brandie for your prior post. It inspired me to make a little sacrifice and be a little tired for my dream.

Okay, now it's off to sleep. Thanks for reading.