Saw Pet Sematary with my bride, who toughed it out like a champ. Considering the subject matter of yesterday’s poem and having just watched this movie, today’s poem feels somewhat inevitable. Here’s to hope and life and love in the face of entropy.
I had a wonderful time with my bride today.
My bride and I went to An Evening with Margaret Atwood the other night, which began with her reading some of her poetry. After listening, I took away permission to ask more blatant questions in my own poetry. I’ve made an effort to steer away from that sort of thing overtly, but Atwood reminded me of one critical rule of creative writing: if it works then it works. Sometimes you don’t know if it does or not until you’ve done it. So, which type of calm do you pursue in your life?
Wait, Day 97? What happened to 96?
I missed it.
No excuse, I had an opportunity to do it during my break at work and I passed on. After that, when I got home I crashed. Hard. Been trying to do so much lately. Not the point.
I am proud that it took me 96 days before is missed a poem. New goal: try to go the rest of the year without missing another one. If I am to miss another, try to beat my 96 day streak.
Today’s poem is inspired by missing yesterday’s. I couldn’t tell you why Neverland and Peter Pan popped into my head, exactly, though in this context it certainly makes sense. Those stories are really depressing and downright frightening at their heart. Missed and stolen opportunities.
A piece of me mourns the loss of yesterday’s poem. It will never be written, never grow up, or go on adventures. It won’t even get to die because it was never born. Simply missed. An adventure not taken, an opportunity not explored. On the other hand, I am taking to heart why this is so valuable to me. The pursuit of dreams, seeing beauty realized and brought to fruition. Here is a rededication to never stop chasing the shine.
An unfortunate incident with my computer set me back by over a month and a half of work. It’s not just the accumulated backlog, but the new stuff I’m supposed to be pushing forward on as well. One of the poor projects fallen victim to circumstances is The Everyday Poet Podcast. Fortunately my cohost is amazing and hasn’t lit any of his enthusiasm for the project.
All that said, I’ve been thinking a lot about preventable mistakes. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but if I’d just done things a little bit differently, prepared just a bit better, adjusted my mindset…it’s never a good feeling when you find yourself mired in the state of “this could have been prevented if only…” which I found myself in today after driving in to work.
I was talking to my bride this morning and she told me about how a nutritionist blogger’s post stirred up a powerful emotional reaction in people. One of the most common responses to her post, apparently, was some variation of “don’t tell us what to do.”
That’s the battle cry for every US citizen, isn’t it? We are a nation of rebels and independent spirits–this is the cornerstone of our cultural identity. It’s why the American Revolution is such an all encompassing focus in our history classrooms.
The newest generations born into this tradition have an absolutely wonderful problem: “What do we rebel against?”
For all of its many problems and our nostalgia, the world has never been a better place and it’s getting better. It’s not perfect, but it IS improving. American citizens born into this world have less to struggle against and with no clear opposition or enemy, many turn upon each other and the previous generations, with whom there is a growing technological and cultural gap.
It is not my intention to villainize the younger generations–far from it. I sympathize. Ours is a nation of rebels, we bring our children up to be rebels, and there’s no clear enemy to rebel against or cause to fight for. The quest now is finding our cause, and it’s not an easy one because finding a cause to truly believes means finding yourself.
Had a special moment with my bride where we experienced a concrete visualization of our goals. Less beautiful was the place than the moment with my favorite person in the world.
I had tea the other day with a man who told me he’d been married three times. He said this in jest, and clarified that he meant that his wife had grown as a person and a woman throughout their marriage and how fortunate he was to have been a part of her journey and to share his life with her. I thought it was a beautiful sentiment and so we have today’s poem.
Thinking about time again. Schedules and liquidity and how easy it is to lose time. No matter how hard we try, we simply can’t hold onto it.
More musings on creatives and the creative journey.
The Everyday Poet 