it’s not like i sit down each day knowing what to write. this not knowing is something i wake up with, that sits on my hands and has resulted in me not creatively writing at all for most of the past many years. i remember when i went to open mics every week. the amount of energy that went into three minutes on stage was its own kind of meditation, a crafting.
i don’t have that motivation anymore. there was a point where the notion of sharing something deeply personal to a room full of strangers was a comfort. when i got my job seven years ago, i opened up many new streams of creativity, but one of the ones i let run dry was my writing. in very little time, the energy that went into poems was reallocated into memos. short stories became grant applications. love letters became emails. cyphers became staff meetings.
there have been spurts in which i’ve been able to strike a balance, though they’re usually during major interruptions – government shutdowns, extended holidays, and now this widespread quarantine. with each of these events, i reach a creative euphoria and i tell myself i will keep up my new habits, only to see them wash away again once the usual returns.
what is it that compels me to break away from the liberty i feel when i write, and retreat back to the mundane bureaucracies that suck me dry? to keep my job, of course, i say. but the truth is, carving your own path is hard. following a template is easy, especially as i age with the world and luxury looks like a day on autopilot.
writing every morning for the past nine days has been hard. i’m still getting past the guilt of no longer being that prolific slam poet who couldn’t buy notebooks fast enough to keep up with my pace of filling them. as my 36th year approaches a close, i’m reminded of the first time i performed at age 18, and how exhilarating it felt to begin a journey of truly getting to know myself. well, i’ve officially been on this road for half my life – a life that might still have a long way to go.
the past few weeks, the past few years, have been about recognizing that things not going back to what they once were is actually a good thing. making something “great again” is a myth. how fortunate we are to not live an existence in syndication.