"Isn't she a moveable feast?"

Today was one of those days where a lot of “internal landscape” changes and a-ha’s occurred. 

I don’t really know what it all means at this stage, which is one of the challenges and the thrills of keeping a daily blog. Sometimes I just want to keep my secrets, secret. And sometimes I want to spill all the beans. Tonight I’m tired (I write for “Hold Me, Touch Me” at night--edit in the morning) and I’m restless—the exact combination to produce some world-class rambling, though I’d rather spare you from that, dear reader.

Maybe I’ll be daring and tell you that I practiced swinging my hips to and fro while I walked down the street when I felt like nobody was watching me. Maybe I’ll be vulnerable and tell you I’ve been dreaming of having someone’s arms around me, though there’s no one-person in particular on my mind…

It did occur to me today that in order to achieve the great desires I feel called in my heart to realize, I must go outside my comfort zone more frequently. Writing this blog is a part of that. Believing in what I have to offer is part of that, too. Hemingway once said, “If you believe them when they say you’re great, you have to believe them when they say you’re shit.” (I paraphrase and can’t find the source of this—I think I got it off of Steven Pressfield…) But there’s another component for me within this paradigm of producing writing that’s made for sharing:

It’s not really my business to decide whether the writing I make is “good” or “bad,” only that it is real and truthful, and that it takes risks. (I love the Jane Kenyon quotation which advises poets to, “…take chances in the interest of clarity of emotion.” I think of this often, especially in difficult moments of intimate conversation.)

And maybe this is one of those nights where I’m just too worn out to get at the kernel of things, because the kernel is protected under layers of understanding which I can’t yet grasp or wade through. Maybe I have so much to do, that I’m having a bit of analysis paralysis, though it’s 9:00 at night and time for bed. I sense an underlying dissatisfaction with things as they are, in the here and now, which has tipped me just over the border from content into malcontent, but I think it’s a bit of what the French call ennui. A little tired. A little sad. A little overworked. A little restless. Yet, on the other side of those little moments of negative emotion, there’s an explosive feeling of aliveness, joy, passion, feeling!

Having a great, big Soul trapped inside a limited body.

That’s the mood tonight. It reminds me of a small moment that occurred today, which I will share with you and then say farewell until Monday:

I recently designed the cover of my upcoming debut poetry book (called “Un-Re-Quiet-Ed,” out in late Summer), which involves my skills at embroidery. A mother and her two children spent some time with me in the shop today, and while they were occupied and absorbed in what they were each doing, I took out my hoop to do some quiet stitching. The little girl looked up and became curious. “What are you making?” she asked me. I explained to her that I was making the cover for a book that I had written. Her eyes became very big and with such genuine and earnest feeling, she said, “You wrote a book??” 

I’ve been having some challenging feelings that come and go regarding this book, which usher me back to the epiphany gifted to me earlier today: my capacity for manifestation will grow, only if I can learn to go outside my comfort zone by genuinely believing in what I have to offer.

For several years—let me repeat—several years, I have quite literally been guided to publish my poetry, and have stubbornly ignored that directive.

“Who cares about my poems? How can poetry lead to any significant kind of career? Where is the money in being a poet?”

These are all questions which have undercut this calling.

It wasn't until sometime last year, I can’t remember when exactly, I realized I had to do this, or else. Or else, what—I don’t know. Just this ominous sense of else…

After months of compiling and editing, I now have a modest collection of about 45 poems that I plan to publish in the next few months. To be honest, the nuts and bolts of this process has been pretty easy and straightforward (I learned a lot about the back-end of publishing over the 12-month period I spent co-producing a new magazine in town here). Editing my own work for this end product has been immensely enjoyable yet challenging to the core; empowering, encouraging, enlightening.

But still, that voice.

“Who literally cares about your book?”

That little girls’ reaction to my seemingly insignificant yet stalwart effort to make good on a directive that came from above felt like receiving a tiny miracle with a resounding punch of a message:

If you don’t share in your thing, your people will never find you.

’Til Monday, dear reader.