Writing the Life Poetic

In service to the vision

In 2003, I stood up in front of a room full of people and said, blind with fear, "I intend to become an author and a mother." I made an action plan -- ok; I made 20 or 30 action plans to increase my odds -- and then I let go.

The next six years were spent holding these intentions lightly in an open palm and feeding them day by day with love, respect, gratitude, and a whole heckuva lot of hard work. There were, of course, no guarantees that either would happen; only faith. Just as my fertility window was beginning to look more like a pinprick of light at the end of an ever-elusive tunnel, I met my husband-to-be. Six months later, I signed my first book contract. 

In late 2008, my baby was born; in early 2009, my book was born. (Pregnancy and post-partum for both dovetailed; thus, I like to call them my multi-media twins.) The twinkle in my eye quickly transitioned to bags under my eyes as I learned what these two new great gusts of love tearing through my world would require of me. I am happy to report that my book slept through the night right out of the gate. My son is taking a bit longer to work out the kinks in his nighttime regimen. (You can read the full, "How I became an author and mother" story in far more detail, if you are so inspired, in my "Articulate Conception" column in The Writer Mama zine.)

Worn out, completely depleted of memory, months behind in acknowledging Important Events in the lives of my friends and family, and barely on top of the piles on my desk as I work full-time, teach, lecture, raise my son and support my family, I am grateful every moment of every day for this bounty of good fortune that has run me ragged this year.

Today I am 40 years old. I step into this next decade with a reverence for the pain and grace of the unknown. I enter it with a trust that hard work + intention + not-grasping has a kind of alchemy that is thankfully far beyond my comprehension. Most of all, I am grateful. For every obstacle and opportunity that has shaped me. For the incredible wealth of love and friendship that surrounds me in my home and my community. For my health, my hands that type, my mind that is willing and that source I tap into every now and then that serves up words that thrill me, surprise me, change me. Dear reader, I am grateful for you, the listener completing the circle.

I raise a glass and a pen to all of us who have the courage to dream big, risk flopping, do plenty of flopping, then get right back up and keep on trudging (and dancing and skipping) forward in service to the vision of who we intend to become and the life we intend to live.

Amen.

 

What is your life purpose?

"'Life purpose,'...implies something beyond "reason." It isn't simply achieving a goal or acquiring some longed-for possession. It isn't the meaning you ascribe to events in your past. It is a chosen dedication of your life energy to something you believe is more important than your individual little existence. It is your commitment. It is that for which you will sacrifice your life--at very least your time, attention, creativity, effort and perhaps even your life itself. It becomes your identity as surely as your name, your body or your story to date.

You can see these different kinds of purpose -- goal, meaning and dedication--in this story about three stonecutters, each chipping away at a large block. A passerby approaches the first stonecutter and asks, 'Excuse me, what are you doing?' The stonecutter replies rather gruffly, 'Can't you see? I'm chipping away at this big hunk of stone.' Approaching the second craftsman, our curious person asks the same question. This stonecutter looks up with a mixture of pride and resignation and says, 'Why, I'm earning a living to take care of my wife and children.' Moving to the third worker, our questioner asks, 'And what are you doing?' The third stonecutter looks up, his face shining, and says with reverence, 'I'm building a cathedral!'" -- Your Money or Your Life, by Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez

Relational: how distance and closeness offer us poems

Poems measure our distance from the things and people we love. To study a child's face is to enter the realm of poetry. When the child tastes his beloved blankie -- takes it into his discerning, few-toothed mouth -- he is looking out from within the poem. Poetry echoes the resonance between us and that which we consider. It gives us words to bridge the distance of unknowns, to bring the taste we seek to our mouths. To hold the child a moment longer. To have his imprint in words still warm in our lap, even as he is turning toward something else.

Autumn harvest

My son Theo just celebrated his first birthday, and I have been looking back on this unprecedented year of life as a mother. Truth be told, I didn’t write much poetry this year. For me, poems happen in the contemplative step-back I take to digest experience and make sense of it.  

There is no stepping back in life with a newborn – only stepping forward into unknown after unknown. Our bodies twined together, mirroring the belonging of mother and son, I have been living entirely in the present-tense, entrenched in the endlessly immediate loop of: “Is he wet, hungry, gassy or tired? Where’s the binky? Do I have time to make it to the bathroom?” And that is exactly where I have wanted to be.  

Though this autumn finds my branches mostly bare of poetry blossoms, what I have discovered in these fastest, slowest months of my life is that poetry is less about what I write and more about the way I live. I am appreciating how my 20-plus-year poetry practice has taught me to show up and really pay attention – especially to the hard stuff.  

When awakened for the fourth time in the middle of the night in a year-long-night of endless exhaustion, poetry sits with me in the rocking chair, breathing in my incomprehensible good fortune to be holding this child. Poetry is the lullaby that sings through grief and  illness and fear. It is the place of stillness at the center of any storm. Like the veins that route my blood where it needs to go, my poetry practice seems to have become a root system that draws deep from the well of trust and welcomes all experience as nourishment without judging it good or bad.  

My son sleeps through the night now. We have a routine and a rhythm that allows me time and space to reflect. With the back-to-school chill of renewal in the air, I am taking a big step back to consider motherhood through the lens of poems. Shyly, words approach me -- wild things uncertain of human touch. I let them come close. I listen. I write.  

Wherever you are in your poetic journey, I hope you will take a moment to appreciate your own poetic root system and all it has taught you about how to live and write.  

May your autumn harvest be bold and bright.  

The case of the mistaken moose

I taught a poetry publishing class at the Willamette Writers Conference this summer. As we were getting started, a lovely man named Barry interjected, "I read your book, Writing the Life Poetic, every morning then do some writing. You are my creative moose."

What Barry meant to say, of course, was "...You are my creative muse."

But the concept of a "creative moose" was far more interesting--and fun. Laughter rippled through the room. I picked up the ball and ran with it. For the rest of our hour and a half together, we shared the insider joke of the poetry moose. At one point, when we were suggesting that the practice of sending out work to poetry journals is a kind of warrior training, we dubbed ourselves the Poetry Warrior Moose.

This is what I love about mistakes. They open up the possibilities in any given moment by enlivening language and sparking the imagination.

For all of my school years and much of my early adulthood, I was so mortified about making mistakes that I'd rather say nothing at all than risk opening my mouth and sounding stupid. I had no idea that all the juice was waiting for me in those fumbled moments. I could not have predicted that poetry lives in the fissures of accidents, as does the true connection that's possible when we stop trying so hard to be impressive.

As it turns out, being impressive is far less interesting than being entertained. And sharing a moment of genuine hilarity with a group of people keeps our butts off of our imaginary pedestals and our feet on the ground -- where they belong. 

How have your mistakes yielded fun, friendship, and new directions for your poetry?

Ten-month tai chi

Ten months: the coolest age since nine months!

Summer Sabbath

I believe in signs. That’s why, when my 10-month-old son pulled the book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller off the shelf for the third time, I decided it was time to read it.

Guilty of preaching something akin to “Sabbath” in Writing the Life Poetic Chapters 60 (The Alchemy of Doing Nothing) and 76 (Allow Fallow Time) but infrequently practicing it, this book gave me a good kick in the pants which landed me squarely on the couch with my feet up.

Lo and behold, on that fateful Saturday, I took a day off from my computer. When my son Theo napped, I napped. Our family took a leisurely trip to the pool. My husband and I cooked a meal together. I felt like a human being instead of a human doing.

Muller credits Brother David Steindl-Rast for reminding us that the Chinese pictograph for “busy” is composed of two characters: heart and killing. This stopped me in my tracks. I, like almost everyone I know, am chronically, overwhelmingly busy. Muller proposes that a day of rest gives us the replenishment we need to live our lives well. To solve our problems creatively. To nourish our hearts – and in our case, dear reader, our poems.

That day of Sabbath was such a success that my husband and I committed to a family Sabbath every Saturday in which all work comes to a halt and the family simply relaxes, enjoys each other, and follows the threads of curiosity and delight wherever they might lead us.

The paradoxical good news for all of us over-achievers is that slowing down actually produces more: work, joy, equilibrium, love. I wonder if rest may be all we need to replenish our poetic wells when they run dry.

So, let’s try an experiment. I propose that you let your creativity simmer on the back burner today, or someday soon, while you simply, deliciously exist—just for the pleasure of it. And while you’re reclined with the rest of your life on “snooze”, make note of any books or magazines that come your way. They just might hold some thread wisdom you’re now ready to unravel.

Unmasking the milk truck

Chapter 23 of Writing the Life Poetic, titled "The Faces of the Stranger," invites readers to investigate their many identity masks through a poetic lens. Somewhat of a chameleon, I've always been fond of exploring the many facets of who we are in the endlessly complex contexts of our lives.  

Into this intrigue with masks pinged Austin's email. It said, "How is life as an overqualified milk truck treating you?"

This made me chuckle and also set my metaphor machine in motion. Austin aptly named one of my most important and cherished identities of the past 10 months -- one that has in large part recalibrated my sense of self.

With my body an indentured servant to the life of my son, my rhythms of sleep, work and play have all been reshaped to his ever-changing needs for sustenance. This has invited me into a fluidity of interdependence unlike any other. Simply put, Theo comes first; and the deck of my life reshuffles around this from moment to moment.

My body is the most marvelous and mysterious machine, serving up milk on demand. From my life flows the lifeblood of my thriving son. Much like pregnancy and birth took the reigns of my story stampeding into the wilderness of my soul, my life as an overqualified milk truck rewrites me daily.

As I meet my own resistance to waking in the night, to dropping everything for the stillness of the sweet fit of my son's body curved to mine, I come face to face with the wild animal of poetry. It sits with me in each moment of surrender. Together we are lost and full of wonder. Together we wait for words to arrive as the stir of metaphor gathers force in the damp and milky moment.

Theo of my heart