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.