I have not been writing. For a couple of years. But I have been writing for a few weeks. I suddenly had some ideas crystallize for a project I have been avoiding. And, of course, because I now actually have Something To Write, I am not writing. Instead, today, I have decided it’s time to clean my refrigerator. I am talking the kind of clean you do when you are willing to start peeling, slicing and cooking raw vegetables again. Using some of the 20 bottles of sticky-topped sauces, juices, oils, and condiments to make eating the vegetables easier. I am deep cleaning my Brita pitcher, so desperate am I for Something To Do That Is Not Writing.

If you’re a writer, you understand that the levels of cleaning are their own purgatory. Today, it’s not enough to do the standard clean out where I look for a cucumber I can put my finger through or a half-slimy bag of spinach. It’s not even the next level, where I find a yellowed hunk of cream cheese shot through with a cerulean marble that has fallen, unnoticed, into the void at some point in the last year. Or where I finally acknowledge the door stuffed with tiny jars and bottles, from bouillon to pepperoncini to homemade salad dressing from 3 years ago. Nothing is safe today, least of all the tub of Crisco with the corroding bottom. Searching the depths of my memory, I can’t remember when I last used it. Through the opaque lid, I see that, whenever I did use it last, it appears that I simply dug it out with my fingers. I decide against opening the lid and check the bottom. 2017.

Six years ago.

It’s all that, and more. It’s soaking the jars for recycling. Scrubbing the shelves and door until there is no dirt, no catch under my fingers as I run the microfiber cloth across the surface after rubbing over the weird amalgamation of red splatter marks, dust, and the sticky unknown.

On the top shelf, a thin sticky spot the shape and color of an amber aviator lens with a bullet hole toward the outer edge.

An upside-down L seemingly  finger painted by an elf in ketchup on the back wall of the refrigerator. It’s not ketchup, though. It’s too orange. Spilled duck sauce, maybe.

I often wonder how the inside of a refrigerator can get so filthy when the door is closed most of the time.

I know the answer, of course.

It’s us, and the movement of new things in. It’s the careless spill of the too-full storage container. The milk jug that we accidentally set down on a pile of coffee grounds that had been spilled on the counter.

It’s us, and out constantly sloughing top layer of cells.

It’s us, and a crumb, a splash, a drip we caused. We probably didn’t even notice.

It’s us, and our dirty hands.

Val, thanks so much for your letter. I’m still writing, but not much in public.

A couple of weeks ago I was doing laundry and I misheard a song lyric as “Made of you but not enough for you” which instantly called to mind the concept of woman being made from a rib of man. I imagined being made of some else’s rib, and still not being enough for them. And I got furious, and then a poem fell out.

I AM NOT YOUR RIB.

I am winter:
blinding brightness and
stark
shocking
unexpected beauty

I am spring:
exploding with life
blooming brightly
unashamed

I am summer:
luscious
peach and purple
splaying sensuously across
the backs of mountains

I am autumn:
ten thousand tiny fires
burning across the
forest floor

Tonight I saw you. I saw you, forearms covered in flour, about to toss another pizza. I saw you throw your head back and laugh at something your date said that probably wasn’t that funny. I saw you walking your giant dog, and your tiny dog. I saw you sitting alone at the bar. I saw you playing darts with your coworkers. I saw you floor it. I saw you cross in the middle of the street. I saw you sitting in your car with the interior lights on, reading your email. I saw you riding in the passenger side with your hat backward and no shirt on. I saw you brushing crumbs off your shirt. I saw you getting a haircut. I saw you raise a beer. I saw you lock up your bike. I saw you moving chairs inside, closing up for the night. I saw you waiting for your dinner. I saw you licking a melting ice cream, diving into pizza with gusto, chugging down an iced coffee. I saw you coo at your baby. I saw you flip off your friend as a joke.

I saw you living your life. You were walking, driving, riding, running, lifting, laughing, eating. You were dating, you were saying hello, you were saying goodbye. You were keeping it together.

You were alive.

I woke up today feeling mentally ragged. I was feeling confused and fuzzy. I couldn’t identify my mood, if there was anything wrong, I just felt off. Unable. My brain seemed to be shouting at me in static. I have come to recognize this static as the herald of a bad ADHD day. I was an hour late to my routine – I didn’t even get out of bed with intent until nearly 9 am, when I prefer to be seated and ready to roll, writing, by 8 am. Today, I knew it would be a battle to get to the keyboard.

So how did I get started today, when the static was deafening? I stuck to my routine, even though it was an hour late. I picked up The Right to Write by Julia Cameron. I opened it while sitting at my desk. Immediately, my computer seemed to be mocking me. It was just there outside of my left side field of vision, and I felt threatened by it and all of the unstarted and unfinished work I would find when I woke it up.

I moved my home base for reading. I took the book out to the love seat. I read 4 or 5 chapters today, just powering through until I could feel the static begin to clear and my thoughts begin to untangle from a knotted jumble to a gentle serpentine. I let the pressure to perform melt away. I let the idea of writing a book or finishing anything at all just float away. I decided to redefine my idea of successfully writing to just that – successfully writing. Sitting here, as I am doing now, dumping my brain out onto a page. That’s all I need to do. I say “I need to” but not in that harsh way that I used to say it. I used to try to flog myself to the page with “needs and shoulds” instead of just writing for the joy and clarity that it brings.

Today while I was reading, I read about creative monsters. These are people who have stifled or even mocked or insulted my creativity. I started remembering the wounds to my creativity, wounds from the past. But at the same time I had those thoughts, I was so SO sick of thinking them. I am so tired of replaying my past hurts and I feel a ferocious desire to MOVE THE “F” ON. MTFO. There is no legitimate reason for me to let the misery of a person in the past define my future. To let some words that some careless person let fly 20 or more years ago continue to make me bleed. It’s craziness. And I just thought, I release that. I am finally sick of my own bullshit. I am so sick of all of my “reasons.”

Because the kicker is that they aren’t reasons at all. They are excuses. I really believe that reasons are few but excuses are plentiful. And in light of that, I’m just going to get to work.

Poetry is my preferred mode of writing. What’s the draw? I can say a lot without having to say it all, which appeals to my desire to keep some things private. It also gives me a way to bleed my heart all over the place without getting overly sentimental or sappy, which is what happens when I try to explain feelings rather than interpret them into poems as they form from me… weird broken lines, combinations of sounds, rhythm (or not), and images. Also, poems just tumble out of me. Sometimes I can’t get to a pen or keyboard fast enough to catch the translation, and then it’s just gone.

At some point, I got embarrassed about writing poetry and I stopped. This was probably sometime between 2004 and 2007, when I lived in Nashville and became enmeshed in Churchland. Scratching out twisty little tortured poems wasn’t what all the nice little church girls were doing while they waited for their husbands to come along. I did always want to fit in so badly.

As soon as I say that I’m a writer, people want to know what I’m working on. I never figured out how to get comfortable in my identity as a poet. I don’t have the patience, drive, or attention span to write a novel for now. So I became a blogger instead. I blogged my little heart out and to me, this was good. This was writing.

But eventually, I even stopped that. How much can you really say about yourself when you’re not being yourself?

Lately I have been trying to wake up my lazy artist inside. I know she’s in there. But I’ve been clamoring around, banging pots and pans and slamming the doors and forgetting to turn off the alarm… hoping she would just wake up and realize that we are getting close to forty years old and there is art to make, work to be done. Damn it girl, there are words to write.

It came to my attention that beating the artist up with guilt trips and loud noises might not be the best way. So I decided to start over. I started listening to my vinyls again. I cleaned the area where I intended to work, made it more visually appealing and soothing. I burned candles and relaxed there. I started reading books, actual books with scritchy paper pages, not just devouring them on my kindle like I usually do.

And that was where my first poem in years was born. I was reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids and I got overwhelmed with emotion a couple of times. The first time, I stopped reading and didn’t touch the book for a week. The second time, I stopped reading and sat with my sadness. I let myself cry for something I couldn’t identify, while Elvis sang “Love Me Tender” from the turntable. Two hours later, I pulled out my laptop and puked out a poem.

And I love it.

I missed this. Missed me.

I have watched with no small amount of trepidation as my Facebook friends played the “7 songs in 7 days” challenge and tagged each other daily. “Don’t tag me, don’t tag me, don’t tag me,” I muttered.

But last night, my friend KK did tag me. I told her that I would try my best.

For as long as I can remember, music has been one of the only things I could really understand. I have issues. ADHD. Low self confidence. Depression. I struggle with social situations, depending on the day. I can’t always pay attention.

I missed a lot of real good conversations
But not for lack of time and place
My mouth participated but inside I was elsewhere
I was transfixed and drooling and lost in their face

-Kris Delmhorst, Janet the Pig

I can tell you exactly where I was, who I was with, that I was smoking, and that it was raining when I heard that song for the first time.

Music was and still is my language, my sanity, my peace. I can tell you the exact situation that led to me curled in a ball and playing Tori Amos’s cover of “Angie” on repeat for two days (stupid Dave). I can tell you the first time I ever heard The Weepies (live, Nashville, opening for The Indigo Girls, with Mandy, Katie, & Elizabeth) and that it was love at first strum. I can tell you pretty much the exact years I was into Snoop Dogg and Method Man and why (2000-2001, a boy, of course).

I can sing all of the melodies, harmonies, bgvs, guitar parts, and penny whistle parts from most of the Indigo Girls’ albums. I get choked with emotion when I listen to the Sublime album “40oz. to freedom.” I dance the same way every time I hear “Cold Beverage” by G. Love and Special Sauce (like an idiot). I haven’t broken or thrown anything in a rage in many years, thanks to the band Hole.

Is my favorite song the one that made me realize my friend Anthony really was dying? The one I found completely accidentally and listened to on repeat the week after his funeral? Is it one of my best friend’s songs, that I know by heart after singing for decades? Is it a Tom Petty song? Paul Simon? Is it the song I listen to when I’m elated or the song I listen to when I’m in the gutter? The song that I play before I sit down to write?

I have always said that songs are like children to me. I love them all the same but differently, and I can’t pick a favorite. I’m about to pick seven, for fun on Facebook. I’ll keep you posted.

 

A dear friend of mine brought these cards back as a souvenir from London in early 2006. I have packed and moved this deck of cards four times. I have kept them, in their original box and cellophane wrapping, in or near my desk for at least the past 5 years – but I never opened them.

Why?

I was saving them. I am a saver. Or, hopefully, I used to be a saver. Cool things, stickers, nice candles, cards, pretty paper. I save them for an upcoming special occasion. What that special occasion is, I don’t know. I haven’t encountered a special occasion in all of these years that requires my London Underground playing cards.

Until today. The special occasion could be the new year, but not really. I have a vague intention of learning to play poker this year. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Mostly, the special occasion is this: I was cleaning out my desk and thought it seemed pretty ridiculous that I’ve been hoarding a souvenir for a special occasion.

I remembered that life is short. I remembered that today is a special occasion because it’s here. Now.

I want to use up everything. It’s not a resolution, exactly, but hopefully a new mindset. I have so many lovely things in my life that sit in storage containers, drawers, and cabinets – all waiting for their special occasion.

It’s today. It’s tomorrow. It’s the next day. It’s March 12. September 27. Any day you can think of. Every day.

 

I plan to stop believing that “I haven’t” translates to “I can’t.”

I plan to start living like I have my whole life ahead of me.

I plan to give my dreams weight and importance and make decisions with those dreams in mind.

I plan to write as often as I can.

I plan to practice radical self-care.

I plan to read library books.

I plan to look forward and only glance back once in awhile.

I plan to stop rehearsing old hurts. I plan to let it go.

I plan to teach myself about the history of my nation and other nations.

I plan to respect myself and my talents.

I plan to exercise, to work my way back to biking and yoga.

I plan to say I love you and mean it.

I plan to recognize happiness and acknowledge its healing power in my soul.

I plan to take every single compliment.

I plan to make my past my past.

Friday afternoon, I sat in a shop for four hours and got my first tattoo since 2006. It was my fourth tattoo. I knew it would hurt. I was surprised, however, that I was ready to stop immediately after the artist began. Right before he started, I said, “I’m nervous.” He looked me in the eye, smiled, and said, “Of course!” Like, why wouldn’t you be nervous?

Before this I got small-ish, black-only tattoos that took about an hour. This tattoo took just about 3.5 hours straight, no breaks.

At one point, I looked down after he finished the outline and I thought, “oh good, he’s almost done! That’s an hour and a half down, we should be done in no time.”

But, here’s the funny thing. I missed a bunch of stuff. When I handed the artist the photo I wanted on my body forever, I hadn’t noticed all of the complex lines and shading. When I looked down at that outline, I thought, “that looks about right.”

I was so wrong. Two grueling hours of shading and filling and coloring wrong. But I wasn’t struggling, not visibly. I wasn’t grimacing or crying or anything. Most of the time, I sat there with a smile on my face, zoning out to whatever music was playing, maybe humming along during the parts that hurt the worst.

I did cry at one point, but it was when I let myself consider that the artist had seen so much more than I did. I had a kind of a realization then – that’s his job, he’s the artist. He’s the one who will see what underpins the design and makes it something moving and inspiring. And I got emotional. I got choked up with gratitude that he approached his work with the intent of getting it right in that way.

I’ve always felt kind of weird about the way I notice every little detail of life. Inflections, expressions, tones, hidden meanings, even intent, in some cases. But I realized, sitting in that chair – that’s my job as an artist, as a writer. So I’m going to get back to work. I’m going to notice the details and fill them in no matter how much it hurts. Nobody sees the world with my perspective, and I’m going to do my best and then put my art out there in any way possible.