I have always been an advocate of writing as therapy,
or at least self-help. I maintain that sorting thoughts and feelings out on
paper (or a screen, if you’re a youngster) helps to clarify and organize. I can
trace my history of romance through the years by looking through poems and have
somehow reached the age where I can no longer recall the subject of some of them
(whew!). This method of sorting doesn’t necessarily produce good poems, but it
can help to create a functional level of sanity.
Lately
though, I seem to have less and less need to express my confusion through
poetry. I won’t claim a more solid sanity. As we age, the worries do change, and
never entirely leave us. Grief becomes an everyday companion, and drops in at
the most inappropriate times. The run-up to the holidays this winter was
particularly stressful for me, and for no particular reason. We spent a quiet
day at home, watching TV and making Duck A La Orange, ultimately following
Julia Child’s recipe after viewing a thousand YouTube videos. My Beloved’s
children are grown, and having been raised without Christmas for the most part
have no great expectations. My niece and nephews are off on their own lives,
too. The two little ones in our lives are far, and not yet of the age of
anticipation.
Yet I
found myself mourning Christmases of yore, the ones that seem to glow in MGM Technicolor
perfection. I think I know now what my parents were thinking as they went
through the Santa Claus motions each year, missing those no longer with us, the
slings and arrows too of their own childhoods. We laughed, though. We laughed a
lot, and I try to keep laughing, despite all the changes. Those Christmases
were not perfect, but they were mine, and they are gone forever.
My
house is in chaos lately. I have recommitted to completing the million little
craft projects I’ve begun before starting any new ones. In one corner are the
components of a new pill box fashioned from an Altoids container, in another a
recently started baby blanket for an infant due in February. There is always
the tablecloth my great-grandmother Harriet made long ago, carefully folded and
zipped into a plastic cover. It needs repair, and I’ve rolled that project
around my brain for years now. I’ve finally decided on a plan of attack, and hope
to have this soft white monkey gone from my list of obligations soon.
Poems
still happen. Even when I think I might not be writing at all, my files
indicate otherwise. I just finished rereading the definitive bio of Anna Held,
and started one about Lillian Lorraine, her successor. Work goes on in my head
about all the long-term projects. I haven’t touched the memoir in months. I am
very anxious to shape that material into something respectable. On the other
hand, I’m not too keen on leaping into the mess that was my life in the ‘80s. A
sort of aftershock takes hold, and I always need to step back and breath after
a while.
But
the desire to express my feelings about the here and now is dormant as the
tiger lilies in our yard. I’ve even made conscious decisions about avoiding
subjects in poems, something I’ve rarely done before. I fear that the rise of
that editorial voice is a bad sign, artistically. Yet I have neither the
inclination or ego to pursue a well-structured poetry career at this point. If
I passed away tomorrow, there’s enough of me out there to float around the
inter-ethers for a few years. Maybe I’m gathering up steam for another grand
project I’ve yet to conceive. In any case, winter’s the time for this kind of
stuff. Crochet, craft, cooking have all taken precedence. The pen will be there
if I need it.
