Itchy

Do you ever start to feel itchy when you haven't had a chance to write?

What have I been doing?

Heck if I know! Not writing, or it feels like I haven't been writing.

But I have been cooking. This morning, it was brunch.

Scones, a spinach, onion, mushroom and sun-dried tomato quiche, fruit salad, and green salad.

In other food news, Dana sent me information about a healthy recipe contest sponsored by the Kidney Health Fest for African American Families. I don't know whether I'll be able to provide an entry (it won't be quiche), and I'm not sure I can do anything that's low on the sodium side, but I wanted to pass the word along.

Now, I'm going to write. Really.

Yesterday's weather

It's been a busy week, what with waiting for snow and watching the snow and working from home and bouncing around for shopping and cocktails. All very festive.

Not a lot of writing—poems or cards. Although I'd like to. In the flurry of the season, I long to curl up and create—something, anything (not that I can; I just want to). But I'm trying to go with the flow and enjoy the season and the snow.

How about you? How do you balance writing and revelry, or do you save your creative energy for the new year?

Summer ghost?

Or anxious doldrums?

Last night, and again this morning, I've been haunted by a nagging disappointment, a sense of expectations not met.

After I returned home from class and helped fix a light supper, I sat down at my computer—and I was surprised when nothing happened. I couldn't get purchase on any ideas, couldn't find a way to dig in and start.

That isn't unusual. I often start with great hopes for great inspiration—and I don't often get it. I go on. I noodle around. I shift words in poems I've been worrying over lately. Why was last night different?

And why again this morning? It's an odd feeling, being on the cusp of something, not knowing what. Is it a block? Or is it just a lull as the momentum for a project slows? Maybe I just think it's writing, when actually it's the reading this Saturday and the trip to Santa Fe next weekend.

But I wish I could put my finger on it, figure it out, start.

What gets you going when you feel you really need to be going?

Start laughing now

I have gone off the deep end.

I have planted corn.

From seeds. Hard golden nuggets.

I have little hope that any of them will grow.

I have no room for them in my garden, anyway.

All the prime real estate (good soil, good sunlight) was filled in by starts that I bought while that packet of seeds sat on my kitchen corner. So now the corn is tucked in the corners, and a few meager that seemed to poor for any plant I wanted badly.

As I hunkered down in the dirt and troweled out short trenches, a handful of seeds in my hand, I felt like Jack, or like Jack's mother—as though I were planting magic. And after I found as many places for the corn as I could, I planted some beans.

If any of it grows—and that's a mighty big if—I'll take a picture. It really will last longer!

Time to punch down (gently!) the bread, if it has risen. I may not be writing so much today, but I'm feeding something.

Riding my bike, way behind

It's bike-to-work month and so I'm back on my bike some of the time, but a lot of the time, mostly because I am very slow and it is a long ride (17.5 miles one way).

This is supposed to save energy and make me healthier and maybe even make me thinner (it won't, though) and it's supposed to be fun. And it is fun, except for that hill, oh, and that other hill. Now I am a little short of breath.

The downside is that I have less time for reading (I can read on the bus, but not on the bike) and less time for writing (I'm spending it all on the bike, and then I'm kind of spent).

I distinctly remember riding along yesterday and having one of those delicious aha! moments. I thought, "I know what my next poem is going to be." Wonderful. But that's all I remember. What was my next poem going to be?

I could stop and jot down a note, but then it would take me even longer to get to where I'm going. It may be all about the journey, but not so much when it's the commute.

All this moaning! And you should hear me when I get off my bike at the end of the day! But seriously, if you haven't cycled in a while, use this month as an excuse. (Joannie says...) Haul the bike out of the shed or the basement. Pump up the tires. Get on and go. It'll make you feel like a happy puppy with its head out the window. It'll make you feel like a kid again.

And tonight, after my long pedal home, I'm going to go to my first letterpress class!

Who has their time?

On Writer's Rainbow, Tamara asks about writers who don't write. She continues:

They mess with their writing schedules, or they go to readings clearly to put in face time with friends, or they spend lots of time in coffeehouses answering email or playing around on Facebook (which is what it really means to be on Facebook for 95% of its users, let's face it), or they say "When this or that happens, I'll get back into writing."

I would like to be a writer who writes every day, without fail. At times, I have been a writer who writes every day. Not currently. I think that I write more than I think I'm writing, but I'm not writing every day. I'm not even messing with my writing schedule. I'm thinking about messing with my writing schedule. (I'm planning.)

Continuing with this schedule idea: Kelli posted an excerpt from Gretchen Roberts who quotes Marcia Conner's writings about chronobiology—the body and its clock. My quick summary: Even though we tend to think of ourselves as morning people or night owls (larks or nightingales), really we're cycling throughout the day between brain time (brilliant), body time (sleepy), and butt time (in between).

Although I describe myself as a morning person, I've noticed that my peak creativity times are both 7:00-10:00 in the morning and 3:00-6:00 in the afternoon. Oh, that's when I'm on my commute. That's when I'm in transition. (I rebel against transition, but it looks like it's good for me.) Unfortunately, it's harder to write something down when I'm in transit. I can write it on paper, but it often stays there and never moves beyond the initial free write. Now that sounds like an excuse.

In the most recent issue of Weber, Carolyn Forche talks about the writing advice she gives her students: Sit down and write anything for half an hour—and if that anything starts to look like it could become something, stick with it as long as possible until you have to start the rest of your day.

I'm excited by this approach. It isn't new, and yet somehow it is new.

Now, I just need to fit that half hour into a time when I'm really ready for it.

And just when you finally have time to sit down and write

all those ideas that have been knocking at the door,
pulling at your ear, brushing your face like cat whiskers,
enticing you like the pictures in a travel brochure,
shadowing you on the city bus or in the coffee line,
and generally sticking to you like gum on your shoe
suddenly vanish the way a spring rain arrives
and then moves on, evaporates, leaves only
the sharp, electric smell, and then even that is gone.