Twelve hours and twelve poems, nine a.m. to nine p.m. on Saturday. And that was just the half-marathon.
I knew it would be a challenge, emotionally and physically; I didn’t expect it to be what it was, nor to lead me to the freedom of my heart and mind that it has become.
With that much writing – and particularly with poetry – I had to tap into the things that were most pressing, which was (as usual) love and romance. Normally, I write one or two poems at a time when things really get too much, release a bit of what’s bothering me – enough to be able to continue – and then forgive, forget, love again and stronger.
This time…
This time, it’s different. Around hour four, I got mad. Really mad, because I felt so very cut-off, so very misunderstood, so very neglected, so very taken for granted by those around me. It’s one thing to be left alone to write, but to realize that no one is even checking up on you? It’s like they don’t even understand how much emotional energy it takes to expose oneself so deeply, and to create something honest, open, truthful, beautiful, comprehensible with that raw emotional energy and self-awareness.
So, I got mad at my best friend – who understood “leave me alone so I can write” as “cut me out of existence for twelve hours”… and understood the opposite as “pester me whenever you have a thought”. I was furious at the insensivity… so I let him know. Then went back to my writing.
Today, in the aftermath, I woke up tired (just as the full-marathoners were finishing their last poems, around 8:30 a.m.), though I couldn’t sleep any more. We had planned, my friend and I, to go to my favorite farmers market, held in Grant Park, Atlanta, every Sunday morning through the growing season; and then we were to meet with a friend from my freshman year of high school, whom I’ve not seen for twenty-some-odd years.
Coffee at the new donut shop in town proved amusing as a twenty-something year-old college student flirted mildly with me as we bought coffees, and then we were off to the farmers market and to wander around Atlanta until our meeting with my friend, which proved to be more intriguing for my best friend than for me, as he and my high school friend had more in common, more to relate to with each other than I had to relate, frankly, with either of them.
And, in the end, I realized the following:
I’m tired of caring what others think, have no longer have interest in “becoming someone” or “making money” or even in having my writing read – no matter how good it is.
Dusk is beautiful in Georgia, and I’m very lucky to have grown up in a small, quiet town north of Atlanta where the evenings are undisturbed, where I can sit on the front porch and contemplate the thunder and the billowing clouds beyond the pine trees.
And men, most men, will never understand me.
Photo ©2017 MLM
Oceans of Mine 