If life were poetry
(anybody want a peanut?)
Felicitations!
Let’s talk about poetry!
As you may or may not know, I have been sending out some of the more polished poems that I have written over this year of abandonment (to be very fair, the financial obligations are being maintained and in the case of the kids, actually exceeded, and wholly without complaint; so if you believe you can quantify the shock and pain and resultant long-term-trauma of suddenly and utterly losing a reliable spouse, a best friend, a loyal fan, a trusted advisor, a field expert, a ready game-player, plus your belief in extended family, your trust in humanity, your financial security, and your faith that things will always work out for the best, your roommate, your emergency contact, a willing co-signer, a favorite companion, all of your plans for the future (bad or good), and of course, your ever-dwindling hopes for eventual rekindled romance, and exchange that for a fistful of dollars then 1) you’d be a great lawyer and 2) you would be waggling a finger at me saying what are you worried about, this all seems very fair and normal and it’s time for you to move on.
Yes, friends. This is the post I promised you - that every six months or so I would check in with you (lightly) on my emotional journey to healing, just so you’d know I wasn’t right off the deep end.
At a year and eight months solo, I still am off the deep end, but it comforts me that when I was a kid I was a great swimmer and pretty much lived in the deep end.
I loved the deep end.
My neighbors had a rather large private outdoor pool screened off from view by skinny topiary trees and my parents had arranged that my three younger brothers and I could walk over and swim there anytime we wanted. This alone proves that I was raised in the 1900s.
For safety: no one under 13 could be at the pool without another kid.
I preferred the deep water. We played all the good games there: the diving board was endlessly entertaining, plus, we escaped the flying mud-wasps and the freakishly scary red wasps by ducking underwater for a long time and looking up at their spindly feet where they rested on the surface. The “pool-sweep” as we called the strange squid-like vacuum that roamed the pool (and was not to be touched or played with) became our monster-nemesis, the screams when it bumped up against you while you listened with closed eyes for “marco!” or “polo!”… the endless Texas sunsets blurring the distant sky into Southwest pinks and oranges while my brothers and I (and occasionally also the two neighbor-girls whose house this was) lay on our backs, unsupervised, floating without toys (ok ok, one of us always won the battle for the float - aaaand sometimes we also popped the float while fighting over it and then we had to fight about who was going to tell the neighbors we ruined their float - it was a vicious childhood jungle in that pool).…
How do people write memoirs? One memory piles atop another cluttering the scene. Every sound could be its opposite. Peaceful stillness was happiness and gravest danger. The peace is broken by shrieks of laughter when someone gets dumped off their hard-won float. Or by shrieks of terror when a horsefly is discovered sucking the life out of a ten year old thigh and everyone ducks underwater.
Life in the Deep End would be a great title for a memoir. And I can see why people are more-and-more writing memoirs as poetry.
Poetry is by nature both fragmented and layered. Images easily have two meanings. Shrieking can be happy, terrified - or both. A cactus can be a symbol or just a background detail. A smooth round rock under a child’s smooth bare foot is discovered to be overheated by direct sunlight, which makes it a peril or a challenge or just a fond memory unique to the world’s hot places where crossing cement barefoot is a game children play.
I thought my life was going to be form poetry. I expected to work on a structure and an internal rhythm. I assumed that once I found the form, the future would become evident and I would spend my days within that form, being as creative as possible.
But this is not form poetry. This is free verse. Or narrative. Or just words on the page. It’s life in the deep end for now - but I’m a great swimmer and I have been surprised by the amount of strength I still have left for treading water and keeping myself afloat. Plus, the skies are beautiful.
Writing News
I can’t tell the difference between these sections anymore, which is always the problem with pigeonholing. But let’s just repeat that I am sending out my poetry collection “Castaways and the Monsters Waiting to Swallow Them Whole” (yes, a cheerful, friendly, uplifting title) to any place that seems to have open submissions for full length poetry manuscripts right now. If you have a poetry publisher you really like I’d love to get an introduction to them.
One of my submitted poems made it to a semi-final round of some competition before I realized it was a pay-to-play publishing scheme. Of 17,000, half made it to this round and those were immediately drowned in marketing for the forthcoming anthology. Thanks, I don’t need to pay $99 for an anthology of 8,500 “prizeworthy” poems. (now, if they select me for the top prize I might sing a different tune…)
Inspiration? I went to see Urinetown last Sunday—written in May 2001, it holds up even better now that the world is actually run by corporations who have decided to privatize and monetize everyday needs beyond the capacity of the average person to pay. Also saw a string quartet perform sweeping film music from Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings in a gothic church in Brooklyn, illuminated by a thousand candles.
And I just saw Redwood with Idina Menzel, which is….well… a musical about sadness. Portrayed through belting. And shouting. Actually, there is very little more to this musical than a tree trunk, outrageously over-the-top projections, and incessant belting and shouting. The night I saw it, the volume on the mics was up so high I was constantly wincing—I’m not sure Idina ever should be miked. And the rest of the cast belted right along with her so the ear-fatigue was real. This show is about learning to feel and the writers and producers could learn something from the forest. Namely? It’s quiet sometimes—and that’s what draws people to it. This show forgets to rest.
Speaking of unforgettable: don’t forget to watch my last Salon, Writers in Existential Crisis - it was such a good show! Surprisingly uplifting and bursting with laughter! Here’s the RSVP link to be in the live (unseen) studio audience for the next one (Christina and I are interviewing four authors whose books are now movies or TV series for their How-To tips.) The show is targeted to busy parent-writers but as always it’s open to anyone. You don’t have to be a parent to be in the audience, just to be featured.
Random Final Thought
I have a voice in my head that constantly asks: “Who do you think you are?”
What it needs to be saying is: “You are exactly who you think you are.”
Stay warm. Seek sunlight. Smile.
MM, this was great. It seemed personal enough that to "like it" would be trite, but I was moved. Seemed like it belonged outside the din of social media, to allude to the unwanted noise of Redwood....That first sentence really packed a wallop....I was tickled by your comment that you grew up in the 1900s. Gave perspective. When I think if growing up in the 1900s, I think of someone who grew up around the turn of the previous century and not of us, but now we are well into the 21st century, and having lived before then does separate people. The kids born now will hopefully predominately make it to the 22nd....The pool stuff resonated with me, and I think your thoughts there have real potential for a Medium-kind-of-piece. Those reminiscences were some of my favorites of yours since you thought back on your name that challenged your teachers, I guess because I can relate to the happiness of the experience.
Life in the Deep End is a great title for a memoir.