Some assembly required

Growing up, you think that your adult life just falls together - that you get there, to this magic state that is adulthood, and you know exactly how to go about managing your life.  Because I have honest and down-to-earth parents, I understood that life threw you curve balls, but lately I've been thinking about the ways in which many people I know seem to have to work at reclaiming their lives.

I started writing poetry (bad, bad poetry) in high school.  If I remember correctly, I figured that all the cool, depressed people did it and so I wanted to, too.  I think I also really needed a creative outlet.  Even though my verse was terrible, I enjoyed putting it together.  I took poetry writing in college and eventually did a creative writing senior project that was comprised of a ten page paper and fifteen pages of poetry.  I handed that in at the end of April 2005 and haven't written a poem since.  I wanted to take poetry writing in grad school, but by the time it was offered, I really wasn't on the creative writing track anymore and the professor that taught it was so intimidating and smart that I didn't feel qualified to sign up for the course (he was my thesis adviser, though).

So most of what I feel like I know about poetry writing comes from my undergrad years, where I was fortunate enough to have some amazingly wonderful professors.  One note that often pops into my mind is that "poets need free time."  By this they meant that you can't write poetry if you don't take the time to slow down and notice what's going on around you.  But this couldn't be passive, either - you have to go out and live a life; it can't be so slow that you're just at home all the time (even Emily Dickinson had some personal interactions).

These are the two situations that I have struggled with since handing in that senior project.  I was either so busy that I felt like I never stopped running around and, when I did, I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open OR I rejected all of that so strongly that I holed up at home and did away with most human interaction and recreation.  This is why "Write 10 poems" is on my 101 list; not only do I want to write ten poems, but I want to get myself back into the balance where I can.

These days I can feel it once in a while and it is so refreshing and enlivening.  I've even had a few lines of verse pop into my head.  I haven't written anything down, though.  The machine isn't ready to produce any product yet; it's just getting warmed up.  The next two months are very busy, though - there isn't a single weekend where I don't have something to do, whether it be work or travel or some social obligation, so slowing it down is going to be difficult, especially since I also don't have fully free evenings.  I can't help but get angry sometimes that I have to work this hard to get some time for myself, that I have to push away people and activities and responsibilities just so I can gain some head-space, but it's a must.  I'm a happier person when I have that time and my brain is in a thinking, creative space, and that will make me a better friend so it does work out in the end.  This blog is actually helping quite a bit; I've found that taking the time to compose my thoughts on one idea is helping me slow down.

We may ride the see-saw as a child, but creating balance is really the work of adulthood.

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