One month later & done with my accidental hiatus. Guess I needed it. Now I need to write & it feels like I forget how, which is scary because writing seems to be how I discover so many things. Here I arrive as a beginner again, only some lines about a guy staring at my tits on the Bx34 bus. Still looking for balance since Devin arrived. Have learned that I like having something to long for& I don’t know what to long for now that his desk is across from mine. Balance. Yes, I want some kind of balance& need to make a little money & write & share my writing & celebrate the summer with people rather than ignore them, afraid of fitting in time with Devin & me-time& work time & writing time & singing time. My life is so full & delicious & this is going to be pure full gushing navel-goo– being out of practice will only work as an excuse for one entry.
The past 24 hours I’ve been interested in cleaning my own apartment. I’ve never been clean, mind you, but I feel like having my own place may be the catalyst I need to become clean& healthy. I need a new vacuum cleaner because my dad’s old one won’t pick up the hair from my carpet.
I’ve forgotten how to be interesting to you, or even myself. Maybe a list? Maybe organize the things in my head…
- I have my own basement apartment in Woodlawn& I’m looking forward to my IKEA trip like a good capitalist. Part of me still wants to saw a couch in half. I can do whatever the fuck I want. It just needs to be a space where I can write.
- Devin is, indeed, here. & things are wonderful, real, living. Conversations about the future happen in the context of the dozen people I love getting married, but it feels nice to relate to him in the present-tense.
- Trying to do journal submissions & entirely too slow at it to be successful. At least I have a spreadsheet!
- Activist training @ Planned Parenthood has made me think a lot about the link between sex ed & abortion & how its not as simple as I have liked to make it in my head, but just as (if not even more) subjective– it IS easy to have an unplanned pregnancy, but in repeated cases, there’s usually a deeper reason the woman isn’t using contraception. That’s what is best addressed: council, not repeatedly teach about how to use contraception. Makes me think of Sarah Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking. Every individual is different (should be simple? not politically…)
- PRIDE this weekend. Zen lecture on Saturday, also trans march? might go to? Not sure.
- Singing at my mom’s church. Probably “Pie Jesu” from Faure’s Requiem. A challenge in my voice, but a worthwhile one.
- WHY AM I NOT WRITING? WHAT AM I AFRAID OF? GO TOWARDS THE DREAD!!
What is it that I dread right now? What am I afraid to say/ that I have nothing to say?
Yesterday was the second anniversary of my dad’s death& my moods & feelings fluctuated with the hours & I ate ice cream cookie sandwiches with Devin& Hunter. Thinking about “affirming life”– to me, this is most worthwhile when it’s an everyday practice, to live in an affirming way without waiting for real life to happen. This anniversary can be a date of remembrance, but cannot be the only day of the year on which I remind myself that I am breathing now, but that could change any minute.
Change any minute. I need fuller days, less time on facebook, more time actually answering my phone, responding to messages, writing poetry.
At least Devin & I ran today & it felt good. & we’ve been making healthy dinners& helping my mum with her house. This is positive.
So much of it is. & writing is a discipline, a practice, & I must do it. I must hold office hours. I must freewrite every day, or I suspect I will explode. This starts now.
