Category Archives: Poetry

Patio.

North by northwest. The round table nearest to Sprouts. I decided to face north, because I never face north, anymore. When I am here. All the best seats, for a wheelchair, face into the crowd. I usually try to write at some oblique angle. I want to focus, and not be distracted by social interactions.

Now that the weather is cooling down. Now that I am in afternoon shadow, rather than staring down summer’s desert sunset. I can sit here and look out at Southern Avenue, while I write. I am one with the ancients. The Sun dictates seating arrangements. She typically calms down.

Come, September.

Now, this is progress!

After I woke, I napped for three hours on the couch.  I am in that exhaustive phase, where pain is something in which I am immersed.

But, I vaporized some Blue Dream.  And, with it, and the extra sleep, I am alright.

There is something noteworthy in this experience.  Although I am dealing with the pain and the fatigue, I haven’t lost sight of my narrative.  This is my first experience of being knocked back, by my symptoms, but not out.  In the past, this is where I would have forgotten everything I was thinking.  In the past, my remaining strength would have bounced me between the couch, and my bed.

Today is different.  Today, I can still think about my book in a way that moves it forward.

I see this as behavioral evidence of brain re-wiring.  I started this book during the last few months of my employment.  And, I have been consciously developing a voice and a narrative during this last year.  My worst symptoms always seemed to make my creative work vanish.  Mentally, it would take days, or weeks, to get the creativity back, and more effort to re-develop the narrative, in my mind.

This is the first time I have experienced these symptoms and retained my creative faculties.

Shh. Shh. Writer at work.

The blog has not gone.

Quiet.  Writer.  Preoccupied.

My creative periods come in spurts, between bouts of symptoms.

My book is my focus.  I am writing my calling card.

In this moment, between symptoms, I can be intensely productive.

I am on disability.  But, I no longer believe my condition should hold me back.

My book, if she sells, will be evidence I can earn my own keep.

Silence is the foundation on which all noise is built.

Sacred Space.

Within, I work.

Things my characters would say.

I am recovering from an intense period of brainstorming that was very beneficial to the evolution of my writing.  But I am back, to actively telling a story.

I finally understand the text I am writing, as the synthesis of all the possibilities I wined and dined in my mind.  Is it fiction?  Check.  Is it memoir? Fuzzy check.

At one point, I thought I was exploring a new space called Fantasy Memoir.  I don’t know if there is such a thing.  There probably is, because when I think I have a good idea, if I look hard enough I will find others preceded me in that particular line of imagination.

But, I have also explored different options to speak my thoughts as non-fiction.  That, though, would require something different than what my spirit wants to say.  My spirit wants a Meta-Myth.

I have found that my spirit, when I judge that it is grounded in appropriate aspirations, typically identifies fruitful avenues.  And, my spirit is telling me to write a myth about myth.

This evening, I once again sat down to work on my manuscript.  And, I wrote a bunch of stuff that doesn’t belong in that piece.  But, it belongs in the story.  So, I have within my Scrivener project, folders for what different characters might say.  And, I am further breaking it down by having individual pages of possible statements and thoughts for each main character at the beginning of the story, the middle, and the end.

My writing style is haphazard, in the sense that I follow inspiration where it takes me.  To hell with the narrative, when great ideas come for individual moments.  So, I write them where I am, which is my draft.  And then, I have to pull them back out.  I just read what I wrote this evening.  It’s all great.  But, none of it seems to go together.

Tomorrow, I will re-organize today’s writing, as a warm-up activity, after my journaling, but before my story-telling.  I approach my writing as a potter explores hand-built pieces.  I am developing a narrative for all of the individual inspirations, that provide context for a truth I seek to convey.

 

What’s up with my book?

This has been a great month of April.  My sister and eight-year-old nephew came.

To me, from Melbourne.  We saw.

The Canyon.  The museum.  And Wupatki.

They left east as the second week began.  To see.

 

Other places and faces.

A widely scattered, diverse family.

I love them dearly.

But, I was worn.

 

Then, ten hard days.  Like the first eight weeks of disability.

Too worn to stare beyond the walls.

But, ideas came.

 

Voice recognition, I am learning to love you!

And I now have folders, labeled for all my concepts.

Ideas filling them with story.

The narration of my ideas is now.

A slurpy concrete.

Setting, in mind.