Writing again…

writing

Feb 25

Back in 2014 I started a communications degree at Univ. of Washington Tacoma. A few quarters in I switched it to a creative writing degree after taking something like “intro to fiction writing.” I LOVED IT! During my time at UWT I was dealing with a severely shattered heart, on several levels, and while in some ways I was feeling more confident, mostly I was drowning in self-doubt, shame, guilt, rejection, and felt completely unworthy of love or joy. Towards the end I was dealing with thoughts of wishing I would fall asleep and never wake up. Tapping into these feelings of unworthiness, various traumas from my life, the humans who I blamed for the current traumas I was experiencing, is how I fueled my writing. Most of my poetry, creative non-fiction and even some fiction pieces, all came from those heartbreaks and traumas. So much so, that when I tried to write about other aspects of my life, my moments of joy, the world around me, or anything remotely positive, I would get nothing.

I graduated in March of 2017. It’s now almost March of 2022, (FIVE YEARS LATER, WHAAAAAT??!?!! That completely blows my mind! How? Like…?!?!?!) and I’ve barely written a thing. I wrote a couple poems for / about a dear friend of mine. I haven’t read them in a long time, but I loved those poems when I wrote them, but that’s really about it. Every time I try I just feel blank. I’ve healed so much of my traumas and heartaches and shitty programming, don’t get me wrong, I have a long way yet to go, but the fuel that I feel I need to write, just isn’t there. I don’t want to dwell and give more life and energy to things I want to heal. I want to process them and let them go, not immortalize them on paper.

The woman to who I wrote the poems has a weekly email she sends out called Poem Friday and every week I’m inspired to write, but then don’t. I get locked in my head. After reading this week’s Poem Friday, which also includes a short but fascinating essay about where the week’s poem came from, I decided to write this blog post.

I’m going to follow her lead and do a weekly poem or essay or short story or whatever, it will be posted here in my blog and if I get enough people who want an email, I’ll start a weekly email like she does. I’ll come up with a different name and day of the week, I think. Suggestions welcome. Nothing cliché, unless it’s ironically so, then that’s ok. Some will have Spanish interlaced, or be entirely in Spanish. Some of those loans paid for that Spanish minor and all the hours of studying… I need to use it too!

They’ll be what they are. Unfinished, probably. Weekly “shitty first drafts” as Anne Lamott’s calls them. Otherwise known as “down drafts” just get it down! Refine later. I may fuss over some more than others and maybe a few here and there will be “finished” a word many writers use loosely.

I’m also going to start submitting all of my forms of expression to journals. Go little rockstar! (IYKYK)

Mark me! (IYKYK) I will start using this $40k worth of student loans degree of mine.

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A revised version of one of the poems I sent her. For those that know her, you’ll get it, I think. It’s also a literally true story.

"Hey Abby," she giggled.

There is a tree near the Washington Coast
tall, lots of reachy branches, like if
she. could. just. reach. a. bit. farther.
she could shelter a few more seekers.

Visible and veiled creatures climbed,
hopped, scurried through her leaves-
There must have been a thousand birds
resting within her strong limbs. Several
squirrel chases, a million creepy crawlies
in every barky crevice, a dozen fairies
dancing and singing, a few gnomes resting
against the trunk quietly humming.
Some elves napping in her shade.

I sat in the passenger seat of my Jeep
chatting with my son about this and that,
as we moms do, when the beautiful tree’s
cheeky grin caught my eye as we passed her,
I smiled back whispering,
"Hey, Abby," and giggled.