In the moment

A weekend of no poetry. No reading poetry. No writing poetry. Almost no thinking about poetry (except for my August postcards).

It was great.

As a poet or a writer or an artist of any kind (even a really inept photographer), I often find myself thinking about how I can transform an experience into a poem or a picture, into something else.

For me, it becomes a meta experience. My attention is divided between the moment and what I hope the moment will become.

On the other hand, if I can trust my senses and memory, if I can be the sponge and trust that the writing will come when it comes, I can immerse myself more in each moment. With much less anxiety. It's all going into one big warehouse, and it will appear when I need it, the same way we found the old travel chest and the Get-Smart-Sixties chair.

Last summer, I talked about living the writer's life. At the time, that meant viewing everything through the lens of writing (consciously or even subconsciously).

Now, I think it means living everything so fully, certain that the words will surface when...

How do you find the balance between the here and now and the poem?