Dreams and Realities

A small interlude in Provincetown last week gave me both peace and perspective. There were abundant whale sightings and cool breezes. The ocean was gorgeous and wild one day, serene the next. There is something primal about being by the sea. I felt small and my stress was diminished by the great expanse. In daily life, it's easy to be overly focused on minutia---correcting papers, driving in traffic, paying bills. How short a time we have in this beautiful and flawed world. How much conflict is created by misunderstanding. I resolve to do better at detaching from issues over which I have no control. In writing, I strive for emotional truth. In the relationships that carry me, I aspire to honesty and appreciation. My dream is to keep writing and life separate, though life informs writing. Writing is an observation, an interaction with the world that is completely realized on the page. Life is ragged and complicated yet always worth it for the perfect moments--- a surprising synchronicity, loving attention, laughter, shared dreams. This week was the fifth anniversary of my father's death. He loved the ocean, as do I. There's a lot I will never know about his life but I did learn a love of language from him. Tonight when I teach my poetry class, I will think of the poetry read to me-Hardy and T.S. Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and Ogden Nash. I will think of the late April morning when we scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean and how memories float like dreams do--in and out of the conscious mind--never disappearing completely from sight.

Distraction and Discovery

I've always been distractable--known to drive eight miles out of my way to see a waterfall or spend fifteen minutes I don't have to spare talking to a stranger in a coffeeshop. As a teenager, I would scribble in notebooks in the back of classrooms, looking studious but dreaming about the intersection of branch and trunk or the lip of shore that awaits the tide. If called upon, I would come up with something that sounded vaguely like our assignment because luckily I can take in while I'm distracted. Today it is called multi-tasking and I don't know how to live any other way. A friend told me that she believes I'll continue this in retirement, if I ever retire. One can't retire from writing; it dogs you. And why would I? Ideas find me and I promise to send them out into the world. I'm not good at networking or marketing but writing is like breathing to me. I accept the fact that I may never enter the legendary "mid-career" stage of being a writer. I was a late bloomer. At the recent AWP conference in Denver, I saw writers in all stages of their careers---graduate students, famous writers, new favorites. The writing is everything. I don't care who is popular or touted by a famous author. I know what speaks to me. I strive to instill this same message in my students. Be true to the emotion. Lie about the details if it serves your writing but stay unfalteringly honest to the feelings. I enjoyed the workshops and most especially a reading from a new anthology edited by Kevin Young called "The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Loss," after the Elizabeth Bishop poem. The panelists who are also in the anthology were Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Tretheway, Kevin Young, Nick Flynn, and Campbell MacGrath. Powerful poems, necessary topic. What a short time we have in this world and how much of it is wasted on disagreement, commerce, noise. On this cool day, I look at soft hum of green out my window. I can see. I can hear. I can love. I can taste (wonderful Moroccan stew I made last night). I can feel. One need not be a writer to use one's senses.