Is it okay to say what I miss? Most of it, truly. I miss getting on stage--be it a mic stand in a book store with all the seats filled, or a single spotlight up a small flight of steps in front of a fistful of musicians. Miss leaving the pages in my seat and closing my eyes finding rhythm and feeling it. There is nothing like it. The online readings serve their purpose in filling a bit of the void but it isn't the same. You know if you've lived it--to be able to let your eyes wander around the room while you listen to someone spilling their heart. To note the weather behind you as they finish speaking, to clap hard in time with others. Even the nerves surrounding it are different. I don't want to see myself while I'm reading. I want to see a small lake of faces listening. I want to be awkward and shuffle weight from left to right. I want my left hand to make shapes in the air while I say words.
In person energy. I crave it like nothing else. I want to sit with my friends in backyards and living rooms--shoot, even in the bar. I want to be in a fidgety circle of bodies with words overlapping. Layers of conversation. I want to be able to listen with my entire body again. These days I watch a lot of people conversing. James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni. Fran Lebowitz. Roundtables of artists. The Strand posts a lot of writer talks and readings on youtube. I miss listening.
I miss an abundance of spontaneity. The ability to call an audible near the end of every outing, to end up somewhere unexpected. To run into an old friend, to take a detour. To peruse books and records, to sit on the floor in the poetry section. Weekend trips to a diner in another city. For months, days have been drained of their random. Instead, it is a routine so simplified that I have to remind myself what day it is, and not just once but many times. Work and home are one place. When someone in my life hurts or needs support, I can go to them. I can diminish the space between us, physically. I can hold them in my arms, hug them too long. I can look in their eyes without a screen between us. That is magic you cannot replicate.
I miss the jigsaw sound of voices in a crowded place. The collage of sentences wrestling the air. With the months passing, I've grown more comfortable with the quiet. Which isn't a bad thing. However, I find myself getting anxious in the presence of a lot of noise now. It's grown into something unfamiliar, and that isn't comfortable. It's strange. It's disorienting. We go to pick up food and I'm surprised by the rollercoaster hum of voices around us. My ears have grown sensitive. I crave quiet in a new way. I've learned to befriend it, something I've railed against for most of my life.
There is beauty to be found in the new ways of now. I have hunted some of them down when I needed to keep going. Some are more obvious. The accessibility, for one. Everyone is trying their best to navigate this--artists of all walks are scrambling to continue to create and share. I'm thankful for technology. Thankful that I can attend a reading of a favorite poet who lives on the other side of the country. In person may not be possible even in the safest of times. There are so many wonderful, brilliant conversations occuring. Sculptors interviewing painters. Writers offering workshops. Musicians giving stripped down performances from their own living rooms to raise money for charity. I have organized my own readings to stay connected and inspired, and the work that has bloomed from them is incredible. We talk about craft, about love and loss, about how frustrated and baffled we are by all our living in this moment. It's so cathartic to create a space for that dialogue.
Time has been given a new meaning. As in there is never enough. That "saying it later" or "telling them next time" isn't an option anymore. Not being able to see my dear friends in person means when we do talk, we say the things immediately. When we speak, there is more honesty. There are more "i love you's" now, now more than ever. Connecting feels so hard right now. And yet. When we do make that connection...it's become something stunning.
In line with that, I'm not interested in wasting time being afraid or second guessing myself. I grab every chance presented to me and do my best to make something of it. What do I have to lose? Sometimes the chance presented is an opportunity to let go. To clean house, literally and emotionally. Never has the past seemed farther away. Where am I in the moment? What can I do to improve upon the silence? I ask it to the page, I ask it to the spinning wheels of my brain, to the chaos of a to-do list. There are of course still bills to be paid, work hours to navigate, sleep to get. No days are perfect. But each holds some sort of victory. Sometimes it's as simple as making something for dinner that isn't a bowl of peas a spoon. Sometimes it's an hour long conversation with Renee where we talk about love and grief and writing in depth. Sometimes it's the rain spilling off the gutter above my window, and remembering that there is still a gutter. There is still rain, still weather. Still so much living to be done.
In person energy. I crave it like nothing else. I want to sit with my friends in backyards and living rooms--shoot, even in the bar. I want to be in a fidgety circle of bodies with words overlapping. Layers of conversation. I want to be able to listen with my entire body again. These days I watch a lot of people conversing. James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni. Fran Lebowitz. Roundtables of artists. The Strand posts a lot of writer talks and readings on youtube. I miss listening.
I miss an abundance of spontaneity. The ability to call an audible near the end of every outing, to end up somewhere unexpected. To run into an old friend, to take a detour. To peruse books and records, to sit on the floor in the poetry section. Weekend trips to a diner in another city. For months, days have been drained of their random. Instead, it is a routine so simplified that I have to remind myself what day it is, and not just once but many times. Work and home are one place. When someone in my life hurts or needs support, I can go to them. I can diminish the space between us, physically. I can hold them in my arms, hug them too long. I can look in their eyes without a screen between us. That is magic you cannot replicate.
I miss the jigsaw sound of voices in a crowded place. The collage of sentences wrestling the air. With the months passing, I've grown more comfortable with the quiet. Which isn't a bad thing. However, I find myself getting anxious in the presence of a lot of noise now. It's grown into something unfamiliar, and that isn't comfortable. It's strange. It's disorienting. We go to pick up food and I'm surprised by the rollercoaster hum of voices around us. My ears have grown sensitive. I crave quiet in a new way. I've learned to befriend it, something I've railed against for most of my life.
There is beauty to be found in the new ways of now. I have hunted some of them down when I needed to keep going. Some are more obvious. The accessibility, for one. Everyone is trying their best to navigate this--artists of all walks are scrambling to continue to create and share. I'm thankful for technology. Thankful that I can attend a reading of a favorite poet who lives on the other side of the country. In person may not be possible even in the safest of times. There are so many wonderful, brilliant conversations occuring. Sculptors interviewing painters. Writers offering workshops. Musicians giving stripped down performances from their own living rooms to raise money for charity. I have organized my own readings to stay connected and inspired, and the work that has bloomed from them is incredible. We talk about craft, about love and loss, about how frustrated and baffled we are by all our living in this moment. It's so cathartic to create a space for that dialogue.
Time has been given a new meaning. As in there is never enough. That "saying it later" or "telling them next time" isn't an option anymore. Not being able to see my dear friends in person means when we do talk, we say the things immediately. When we speak, there is more honesty. There are more "i love you's" now, now more than ever. Connecting feels so hard right now. And yet. When we do make that connection...it's become something stunning.
In line with that, I'm not interested in wasting time being afraid or second guessing myself. I grab every chance presented to me and do my best to make something of it. What do I have to lose? Sometimes the chance presented is an opportunity to let go. To clean house, literally and emotionally. Never has the past seemed farther away. Where am I in the moment? What can I do to improve upon the silence? I ask it to the page, I ask it to the spinning wheels of my brain, to the chaos of a to-do list. There are of course still bills to be paid, work hours to navigate, sleep to get. No days are perfect. But each holds some sort of victory. Sometimes it's as simple as making something for dinner that isn't a bowl of peas a spoon. Sometimes it's an hour long conversation with Renee where we talk about love and grief and writing in depth. Sometimes it's the rain spilling off the gutter above my window, and remembering that there is still a gutter. There is still rain, still weather. Still so much living to be done.
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