I Feel Like a Writer

 I feel like a writer. This summer has given us hours to spend in our studio, with Michael painting and me writing.  My last post included some segments on an essay I'm working on Why We Write.  I wish to send it in to Poets&Writers magazine so I requested a sooner-than-usual meeting with my mentor. We skyped, and she, being the archeologist she is, has me dig deeper. I love her ability to find the one line that works, even when it means that I must rewrite my entire essay.  Gigi, picked one line out of fifty-six and suggested to work off that. Of course I'm up for the challenge.  I can't go back to my original when she gives me a radical idea to try. Several hours more into this writing piece and I am still rewriting.  This is what writers must do to work their craft.  I've spent close to a year or more revising some of my poetry.  Some writing flows, some trickles, and some pours.

Days spent solely in our studio has meant we've missed a local concert or that movie we wanted to see, we forget to eat, or make phone calls, or paint the trim we keep putting off, but it reminds me of something the poet Mary Oliver once wrote.  She spoke of missing appointments and luncheons and asked not to be upset with her but to be happy that she must have been in a blissful state of being, of writing.

I stretch, and change positions, compose, and compose again. I am thankful for these summer days in our studio, with Michael by my side, and Ella playing on our phonograph. I can't imagine a happier way to live.

Happy writing!
~Bess

Why I Write

My assignment for today's writing was an unexpected one.  I sat down in one of our 1950s Knoll manufactured orange tweed one-armed chairs that we bought at auction because we loved it, despite its only arm being worn and frayed.  Its partner is in slightly better shape.  Together they make an imperfectly perfect pair like Michael and me. In front of me on our yard sale-found Eames designed coffee table water-marked with glass rings from gatherings gone by, is an old olive oil bottle holding a thrush of full-bloomed red and yellow blended Mikado roses and a copy of Poets & Writers. The roses are beautiful and they urge me to write about them, to relish in their lush layers. Instead I pick up the magazine and browse for any submission ideas. Submissions are the only overwhelming aspect of writing for me.  I love writing and rewriting, but finding a magazine or online literary journal that might accept one of my poems is daunting. I happened upon an essay under a segment titled Why We Write. At the end, there was an open invitation to share essays of our own experiences and stories about why we write. There was my prompt.

I took my Moleskine notebook stuffed with poems in progress and filled with crooked, sideways, and messy writing and began a new page. I lost track of time but spent a good portion of it trying to identify the type of roses that were on the coffee table. In the end, I wrote a mini autobiography of how I came to write. it was a bit cathartic. Here are two larger excerpts of my essay:

I did not get a degree in Liberal Arts, instead I opted for the more practical science degree of Physical Therapy. I studied art throughout high school and received several local and national art awards, but I didn’t have the courage or the confidence to pursue it as a career choice.  I could be guaranteed a career in Physical Therapy. I did not touch a brush again for twenty years.

Not satisfied with the strict allopathic methods of treatment, I leaned more towards the holistic approach of manual therapy. Ten years into my career, I pursued a certificate in Massage Therapy to complement the conservative methods. With the license to use my hands holistically, helping others, I felt like an artist again.  I was able to encourage healing in a manner different that I could within my physical therapy profession. I established a private practice and it became an early success. Working for myself gave me the freedom to feel whole and in control of my destiny, at least career- wise, at least for the present moment.  I did not know that I was on a trail that would bring me back to art and to love.

I believe that during a massage therapy session, when there is a trusting relationship, energy channels open and inspiration and healing flows.  It may be the last line of a poem, an answer to a problem, or oxygen to a tight muscle.  Our breath becomes fuller and with each breath is an opportunity to relax, expand, heal and grow. We take an average of one thousand breaths a day.  That’s one thousand opportunities. How eye-opening is that?

I was probably only paying attention to one tenth of those thousand breaths but it was enough to listen to love and truth when they presented themselves, unannounced. Almost ten years later, I was trying to once again balance my conservative and alternative selves. With a successful practice to acknowledge, I was encouraged to take another leap of faith.  I divorced from a neutral marriage and let my heart feel its pulse.

Paying attention to another tenth of the one thousand breaths, and with the book Love Poems from God given by my best friend, and a mini CVS steno pad, I began to write. It wasn’t a brush (although I have since completed two water-color portraits of my children), but it was my hand and my spirit moving creatively again, and it was liberating. Soon, the lined paper and the size of the steno pad was too constricting, and I opted for the blank pages of the Moleskine notebooks...

Three years, nine hand-held and six-and-a-half 8 x11 sized Moleskine notebooks later, I am still writing. My love and now husband, is a painter and we have collaborated on several exhibits featuring his paintings and my poetry. They are collections of shared love and joy we find in the everyday.  I’ve read such classic writer’s literature books as Western Wind and Writing Down the Bones and I found an outstanding mentor with whom I meet biweekly to challenge and encourage me when I have no idea why I am spending the hours of a part-time job fooling with words. I subscribe to Poets & Writers, Ploughshares, New England Review and several other literary gems.  I do not have a published book of poetry and all of my submissions to date have been rejected, except for one.  Does it count if my husband is a professor at the university whose literary magazine is the only one that did accept my poems? It’s okay. I’m still an emerging poet. Aren’t we all emerging somehow? I hope so.

I spent eight hours writing today, sitting in our studio with Michael painting a few feet away.  We swam and worked in the gardens that are heralding new wildflowers, squash, and purple string beans. Today, I feel like a real writer. Its a wonderful way to live..."vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore"

Thank you carrot friends who take the time to read.

~Bess