This is blog number 3. The first, called Living Larger, was largely about coming out of a divorce, where one feels tight, fearful, small. I hashed through some of my feelings about being 50 and newly divorced, celebrated growth, and e-wondered about how to have relationships with my grown children. One of those children told my ex husband about the blog and he sent me a 5-page letter, refuting my thoughts and feelings. I gave up living larger and shut down the blog.
Blog number 2, Striking my note, began with good intentions. I started it as I'll start this one, with a piece from Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. My son framed the poem simply, black on white with a black frame and gave it to me on my 50th birthday. He read it aloud at the party. It's fierce and brave and insistent about writing. I thought it would motivate me. It was a good idea I think, yet the for some reason a raucous sour note was struck in my life this winter. I raged and roared at work and nearly got fired; I fell in love and failed to listen to the heart of my best friend and actually have been fired, or at least for now. I've lost clients, lost my creative mojo, and lost heart. I discovered that the raw, dark, hopelesness that come from loss, anger and grief does not make good writing. I couldn't distill my feelings into something readable, there were no lessons learned yet.
So, blog number 3. I actually tried to delete all my blog posts and re-up Striking my note but for some reason, it won't publish my new entries. Perhaps the fear and bitter rage that certainly jumped like sparks from my finger tips to my laptop keys paralyazed that blog, barring it from moving on until the anger was transformed to a sense of urgency and the grief to compassion. I don't believe I've fully made that journey yet but I want to. Want to dream the sun and now, strike my note.
From Station Island, XII
Seamus Heaney
"Your obligation
is not discharged by any common rite.
What you must do must be done on your own
so get back in harness. The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breat.
You are fasted now, ligt-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here. And don't be so earnest,
let others wear the sackcloth and the ashes.
Let go, let fly, forget.
You've listened long enough. Now strike your note."
Blog number 2, Striking my note, began with good intentions. I started it as I'll start this one, with a piece from Irish poet, Seamus Heaney. My son framed the poem simply, black on white with a black frame and gave it to me on my 50th birthday. He read it aloud at the party. It's fierce and brave and insistent about writing. I thought it would motivate me. It was a good idea I think, yet the for some reason a raucous sour note was struck in my life this winter. I raged and roared at work and nearly got fired; I fell in love and failed to listen to the heart of my best friend and actually have been fired, or at least for now. I've lost clients, lost my creative mojo, and lost heart. I discovered that the raw, dark, hopelesness that come from loss, anger and grief does not make good writing. I couldn't distill my feelings into something readable, there were no lessons learned yet.
So, blog number 3. I actually tried to delete all my blog posts and re-up Striking my note but for some reason, it won't publish my new entries. Perhaps the fear and bitter rage that certainly jumped like sparks from my finger tips to my laptop keys paralyazed that blog, barring it from moving on until the anger was transformed to a sense of urgency and the grief to compassion. I don't believe I've fully made that journey yet but I want to. Want to dream the sun and now, strike my note.
From Station Island, XII
Seamus Heaney
"Your obligation
is not discharged by any common rite.
What you must do must be done on your own
so get back in harness. The main thing is to write
for the joy of it. Cultivate a work-lust
that imagines its haven like your hands at night
dreaming the sun in the sunspot of a breat.
You are fasted now, ligt-headed, dangerous.
Take off from here. And don't be so earnest,
let others wear the sackcloth and the ashes.
Let go, let fly, forget.
You've listened long enough. Now strike your note."
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