“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.”
~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart:
Heart Advice for Difficult Times
I gave a reading of my poetry two nights ago, here at the Virginia Center for the Arts, and it was incredibly well-received; there couldn’t have been a better audience. I felt great, the poems I chose made a good arc, and the discussion afterwards was excellent.
Since then, I’ve been totally unable to even start a poem. And, what’s more surprising, I don’t feel a desire to do so, even here at the place where I’ve always been easily able to sink into the “zone” where the part of my brain that is responsible for creating is nourished and supported.
I’ve always committed myself to write a poem a day, or at least a draft, while I am here.
So, I’m reading some of the many poetry books I’ve brought with me for inspiration. I stare at the notes and images, phrases, I’ve scrawled on a legal pad next to me as I read. Usually that immediately sets me up to begin writing— some thought or word triggers the idea for a poem and my pen begins to move.
Not today, not yesterday.
I look at the poems I’ve pinned to the cork board in my studio and feel a strange distance from them—like they’ve been written by someone else
What is happening?
Yesterday a friend sent me an article about writing that included this quote: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” (Gene Fowler)
I feel a little like that.
The other afternoon I became engaged in conversation with another woman here with whom I’ve been spending a lot of time. I said to her that I felt I was on a bridge to somewhere other than where I was now but couldn’t articulate this new place. It was a blur.
I told her I felt full, but empty at the same time.
I explored ideas with her. Maybe I should give up writing? No, that would be impossible. Maybe just read novels for the rest of my time here? Possibly take naps and hang out? Go home? Sign up for another one of Ellen Bass’s ‘Living Room Craft Talks,’ Be patient with myself and see what comes?
Maybe that.
It feels like the end of something, and then the space before what comes next. I remember now having this feeling before I ended my therapy practice, and then when I knew it was time to relinquish my years of work with Touchstone and my beloved delinquent girls.
But both of those times, I was overstressed, struggling with so much to do. I didn’t have the luxury of time to sink into that transitional space and really explore it, truly be there, though I did write about it in my memoir, I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent.
I do now. It’s scary. I don’t know if it’s bad, if it’s good.
During a phone call this morning, my husband laughingly reminds me that guilt is an old friend of mine. But I don’t really feel guilt, nor do I feel the pressure to succeed that has characterized much of my life. I’ve been having fun here, engaging in long breakfast and after-dinner conversations with a diverse array of people here, mostly women, not pushing myself to get back to the studio and write.
It is just so surprising. So expansive. So supportive.
I feel fully fledged, untangled. Ripe. Not just because everyone here is so much younger than I am, either. Maybe that’s it. Maybe this weird new place is what I’ve been striving for without being conscious of it, Full adulthood. Maturity. A state in which I have more choices than I’ve ever had, despite my age. Freedom.
Yes, that’s it. Freedom.
So, what do I do with it? What’s the action plan, I ask myself.
Maybe just sit in its spaciousness and listen. See what comes. Be content.
For now, anyway.
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And guess what? I wrote a poem I really liked the very next day.