Face it, everything always takes a lot longer than you expect.
Especially when it comes to building something. Act of creation may be spontaneous, but even God, according to holy texts, had to take a rest after a few days. While something can be destroyed in a blink of an eye – a life, a forest, a career, a dream – a relationship – it can take aeons to build either one of those.
It also applies to days. You can plan out your day or work, but some tasks will take a lot longer than others – and you can beat your head against the wall all you want, but there is no use.
It is already one week into 2012, and I still feel like NYE was yesterday. Does it progressively get even more so as one gets older? I hope I can find creative ways to slow my perception of time down. It feels like universe is playing a game of poker with me and bluffing, when time goes by this fast. I have to call its bluff or else.
I also feel like I should start writing poetry again. Poetry crystallizes the moment and is a meditative experience. It's not unlike taking a walk inside your emotional world: it is a snapshot of your internal landscape through a lens of words. I think poetry is more useful, over time, than paying a psychotherapist. The wild or wounded creature inside you may take a while to emerge, when faced with a rational, albeit sympathetic stranger. But given an opportunity to express her or himself via a few random words, committed only to paper – or screen (for the smartphone poets out there) the emotional self will take the bait and give you a hint as to your real feelings and the why's of them.
I have practiced this time and time again. Some would argue it's not poetry, but 'free associative writing' because it doesn't have to rhyme. Ah, but 'Poetry' sounds so much better. Put some words to paper from your heart, and you are a Poet. I like being a Poet a lot better than just plain ol' me who is doing something called 'Free Associative Writing'.
Just make sure these are not poems you post on Facebook or take to your significant other and say, uncertainly: 'Oh, it's this poem I wrote…uh…mmm…want to hear?'
These are poems to be kept hidden and private. They are maps of your internal continent and some of the traced routes may lead to treasure or great peril. Make sure you share them only with someone who already loves and accepts you for what you are, and does not need for you 'to complete' them. Or vice versa – if you are a people pleaser and need to validated, don't go there.
Keep your poetry to yourself.
A cup of tea
not much longer
until you see
the wake of stars
with plumes of light
the moon is pale
open the window
let uncertainty in
and revel in chaos
of being human
(eik, 8-21-09)
