If I’m Not, poem by Bethany Reid (IF I Poetry and Prose Series)
Trying to draw attention to a lovely journal — and a poem by moi…
If I’m Not, poem by Bethany Reid (IF I Poetry and Prose Series)
If I’m Not by Bethany Reid If I’m not the woman you took me for then take your pick of women, scoop one from Earth’s bounty, the heart of a melon, a tomato sweet off the vine. If irises in late aft…
Source: If I’m Not, poem by Bethany Reid (IF I Poetry and Prose Series)
Resistance Is Futile
Friday evening, while I was out of town and hanging out with writers, my youngest daughter began a torrent of texts requesting — no, demanding — money for a Halloween costume. Little Red Riding Hood. Everyone at dinner was amused at how this absorbed my attention. How the $$ kept adding up. A perfect costume (on sale!), then a cape, then shoes, then stockings. Etc.
The argument kept ramping up, too. “I didn’t ask for a dress for Homecoming.” “I didn’t go to prom my junior year.” “I didn’t buy a costume last Halloween.” “I’ll clean my bedroom.” “I’ll clean the whole house!”
At some point, apparently too lily-livered to say “no,” or simply to hide my phone, I decided to go for it. I transferred the money from my account to Emma’s (damn smart phones, anyway). I had to put up with some mostly kind teasing, but I was able to eat my dinner and enjoy the conversations swirling around me, and the reading that followed dinner. For whatever reason, I felt entirely satisfied with my decision. Perhaps it is only that I have been held hostage by darker forces than this kid.
Today, feeling considerable resistance to diving into my work, I started thinking about how parenting and writing both conjure up resistance, and how resistance this morning in fact is rearing its ugly head — more persistent than any 17 year old wanting moolah — how it cajoles and whines, how it makes excuses for you and pulls you away from what you in your heart-of-hearts really, really want to do. You deserve to have some time off. You need to rest your brain. What harm can a game of computer solitaire do? The book will still be there when you’re ready. There will be time later. No one wants to read it anyway. How about lunch out? How about dropping everything and going to Bellingham for the weekend? Maybe you should buy the new Tana French novel. Maybe you should go back to bed.
As Steven Pressfield says, “Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned.”
My daughter is small potatoes compared to that.
What I do when I’ve had a few days away and I face this awful not-wanting-to-work feeling, is list all the very very small moves I can make.
- Open my novel notebook and read a chapter.
- Write out a scene or just a few sentences and see what I might change or add.
- Describe a character that’s giving me trouble
- Write a scrap in that character’s voice.
- Walk out to my car and fetch my poetry notebook.
- Type up one poem. (5 minutes!)
- Write a blog post.
- Use any momentum I can build by doing this post to do one more thing.
Sometimes I do give in to resistance. Sometimes I go back to bed. Sometimes a nap (or a healthy breakfast) is just the break I need. I think the key, though, is to be conscious. What am I doing? What am I doing now?
Piano Lessons
I have now had three piano lessons. “You are on the verge of being able to play a song,” Susan promised me on Monday. “You are right there.” During the lesson, which thus far has been a lot about naming notes and counting, she had me play some pages of exercises. One of the exercises required me to play three notes at once with my left hand, then the “e” above middle c with my right. “Now play them at the same time,” she said. I did. “Ta da! You’re playing with both hands at once!” She gave me my first actual song (a Halloween song) to work on and I went on my merry way.
Easy peasy.
And not easy at all. Taking piano lessons is reminding me of some of the most basic, opening gestures in starting a writing project. They may as well remind you, too.
Put your project in a notebook. A nice notebook, a dignified one — for piano, the notebook has to have firm covers that stay open, allowing you to read the pages inside while your hands are on the keyboard. For piano or a writing project, the notebook becomes a home for whatever material you accumulate, a safe place where it can gather and wait for you to return to it. Susan suggested that I decorate the notebook’s cover (it had a clear pocket that a picture can be slipped into); for a writing project, I suggest that you create a working title and a title page. As Louise Erdrich says, “a title is like a magnet. It begins to draw these scraps of experience or conversation or memory to it. Eventually, it collects a book.”
Practice every day. Yes, I know that some people will argue with me, but I don’t think art happens without discipline. Especially at the beginning, and no matter what other demands there are on your time, your goal is to dedicate a few minutes each day to establishing your practice. Kim Stafford, in The Muses Among Us tells a little science story about how someone examined a violin microscopically and found, just after it was played, that there was a rippling effect in the wood, just as there is in water. And the ripples persisted for about a day. After 24 hours or so, they were gone. This explains so much!
Haven’t you seen a piano that is never touched, an ornament in someone’s living room, or a stringed instrument displayed on someone’s wall? They don’t look alive, not the way an instrument that is loved and played regularly is alive. Just like the Velveteen Rabbit, musical instruments come to life when they are loved. Loved = not left in a corner to collect dust; loved = picked up and hugged.
I’ve found that it is not so easy to fit practicing the piano into my routine. It isn’t, after all, already there. I have to intentionally put it there. When I lament about how busy I am to Susan, she says, “baby steps.” If I don’t have twenty minutes, maybe I have five. If I don’t have five, how about one? Could I establish a habit of merely sitting down on the bench and putting my hands on the keyboard, once or twice a day?
images from Pixabay
That’s my third bit of advice: nurture a habit of beginning. For now, don’t worry about how long you keep at it. Just pick up your notebook. Read a few lines. Take the cap off your pen and make a note. This small step will lead — eventually — to more.
I promise.