Sage Cohen's Blog, page 11
February 4, 2012
Winter Confession
By Mark Nepo
I've tried to follow every wind and
listen for its source. I've tried to follow
every light, and with my face in the sun,
all the things we carry that are afraid of
the light scurry to the back of my mind.
I've tried to find the truth and when I
have, I've found it's everywhere, and that
I step over it in my pain or want for some-
thing I can't have. Thankfully there have
been ordinary blessings. When I followed
your presence into what would be our love.
When I took a left in the path that led to
the sea and stayed there for days, putting
down all the names I'd been given. How
months later, while dropping a book of
poems by George Seferis, a wet clump
of grass stained his instruction to speak
plainly. And the small light that brought
me back while I was in surgery. It was a
crack of dawn promising so much, if I
could just get up and walk beyond death's
slim tree. And here I am, all these years
later, mouth open, still in awe. Yesterday,
in the pines, my dog put her nose in the
snow. What a teacher. I slipped to one
knee and did the same.
January 16, 2012
I want my eggs
I want my eggs soft
and in between destinies
the yolk undecided
the white a nimbus
of coagulated light
haloing its small yellow
sun as I have lived
trained to the perimeter
of what is most alive in me,
accomplice to
and bearer of
its diminishing light.
January 13, 2012
And a few more F-words for good measure!
Hello and happy Friday! I hope you have at least as many words on the page today as I have crumpled tissues littering the various surfaces of my home. January has kicked off over here with a very devoted strain of bronchitis, accompanied by a surprising and potent smattering of f-words! The one at the top of my most popular post of all time, (Warning: don't look if profanity offends you–sincere apologies to those already offended) was quickly flanked by an article on using (F-)ear as (F-)uel in the writing life and an essay about becoming (F-)ierce as a writer and a human. You'll find a spoonful of each below.
Thanks to the profoundly poetic, spiritually expansive Fiona Robyn for featuring my piece Becoming Fierce on the Page at She Writes, which covers, approximately, my journey from here:
When my marriage ended, so did many of my oldest and most central friendships. Surrender became a bonfire, and it was exposing every disrespect I had ever tolerated but not (until now) felt in the brilliant light of consumption. I who had never been angry was distilled to this single, blue flame of rage that cleared my life, my beliefs, my identity right to the very foundation. With no comfort of continuity to cling to, I was like a page torn from its book, floating without context or binding or reference. I was a mess of words that suddenly meant nothing.
WritersDigest.com generously shared their pulpit with me so I could proselytize about the opportunities fear presents in the writing life in my article 10 Ways to Harness Fear and Fuel Your Writing. It begins:
The writing life presents endless opportunities to meet fear. Facing the blank page, sending work out for publication, and reading to an audience can all be triggers. Fear is neither good nor bad—it's simply an emotional weather vane that lets us know where we are meeting or anticipating challenge.
Fear becomes a problem when we do (or don't do) something to try to avoid feeling it. And this is what too many of us are in the habit of doing. For example, if we let the fear of rejection prevent us from pitching or querying or submitting, we are ensuring that we'll never realize our aspirations. Even worse, we're reinforcing fear's position as captain of our craft. But when we consciously work with fear, we can actually harness this energy source in ways that support our writing goals and enhance our writing experience. Here are 10 ways to do it.
Get your 10 tips for facing down fear.
Several paragraphs beyond my initial gratitude for Fiona Robyn, here I am again, grateful to her and her grace-inspiring husband Kaspalita Thompson for more things than I can mention–but especially at this moment for being "chuffed-to-bits" to host me on their fabulous Writing Our Way Home blog. Here's a small bite:
My son's gingerbread house dissolved from shape to memory in the sink. Words, too, penetrate my (F-)ixed and willful places until I am something different than the shape I once appeared to be. Outline collapsed to the idea of a woman writing. Idea collapsed to motion.
Read the rest of Writing as a Way of Life.
If I haven't completely exhausted you with reading assignments, I have one more — but this one is more of a listening and savoring assignment, and it may be the best thing you've done for yourself all day. Experience Fiona's and Kaspa's (See adoration above) Saved By A Poem Podcast. Pure music. And make sure you really take in Esther Morgan's poem "This Morning" featured there and read by Fiona. Kim Rosen initiates us into the possibilities of poetry as medicine, and Esther Morgan delivers quite a potent spoonful.
There you have it, folks. Back to my tea and tissues. May your weekend be gentle and bright.
January 2, 2012
2012: Year of the Mother F#@%*er and other unprecedented intentions
Happy New Year, writers! I've been so enjoying the potential of the great, blank page of 2012 that I haven't been able to bring myself to mar it with a single word. At least, that's what I was telling myself until my dear friend gave me this mug today:
When I held it in my hands and had a good, hard laugh about the perfection of its message for this particular writer, I had to face the truth of why I wasn't writing here about setting goals for 2012: I was bored. Bored with my own ideas, bored with the process, and unconvinced that my own, 22-page PowerPoint is the golden key that will unlock the queendom of a fabulous year of writing. So, I haven't been able to suggest that you do the same.
Instead, I find myself with a new divining rod: a mug that takes a stand for my writing life.
I typically choose a word for the year, and I have mine on the bulletin board. It's a fine word, but it doesn't make me laugh, and doesn't make me run to my computer to follow the thread of an idea–with four bags of melting groceries sitting on the kitchen counter–in the way that this mug did.
As it happens, I was chosen by this intention. Gifted with it by someone who knows well how I live, how I write, and what the phrase "mother fucker" has meant in the vernacular of this household in the years since I became a mother. What have you been given that powerfully reflects back to you who you are and where you are headed? If you scan around your home, your workspace, and don't see anything, no problem. I invite you to come up with your own big-picture statement/intention that challenges you to up the ante in 2012–one that you commit to live and write by. Make sure it's something you can measure everything you do against. Make sure it's hilarious, scary, outrageously ambitious, offensive, or in some way pressing on you in a way that is going to get your attention.
Let's plan to be a little uncomfortable together in 2012, shall we? Try things we haven't tried, set the bar so high, we have no idea how we'll ever make it over. Let's surprise ourselves with the truths we are willing to commit to writing, with the writing hours we are able to keep, with the risks we take in submitting, reading publicly, asking for what we want.
You're not alone as you make the crossing. We're all in this together.
You have all day. You have all week. You have all month. You have all year. What, dear writer, do you intend to make of them?
2012: Year of the Mother Fucker and other unprecedented intentions
Happy New Year, writers! I've been so enjoying the potential of the great, blank page of 2012 that I haven't been able to bring myself to mar it with a single word. At least, that's what I was telling myself until my dear friend Savannah gave me this mug today:
When I held it in my hands and had a good, hard laugh about the perfection of its message for this particular writer, I had to face the truth of why I wasn't writing here about setting goals for 2012: I was bored. Bored with my own ideas, bored with the process, and unconvinced that my own, 22-page PowerPoint is the golden key that will unlock the queendom of a fabulous year of writing. So, I haven't been able to suggest that you do the same.
Instead, I find myself with a new divining rod: a mug that takes a stand for my writing life.
I typically choose a word for the year, and I have mine on the bulletin board. It's a fine word, but it doesn't make me laugh, and doesn't make me run to my computer to follow the thread of an idea–with four bags of melting groceries sitting on the kitchen counter–in the way that this mug did.
As it happens, I was chosen by this intention. Gifted with it by someone who knows well how I live, how I write, and what the phrase "mother fucker" has meant in the vernacular of this household in the years since I became a mother. What have you been given that powerfully reflects back to you who you are and where you are headed? If you scan around your home, your workspace, and don't see anything, no problem. I invite you to come up with your own big-picture statement/intention that challenges you to up the ante in 2012–one that you commit to live and write by. Make sure it's something you can measure everything you do against. Make sure it's hilarious, scary, outrageously ambitious, offensive, or in some way pressing on you in a way that is going to get your attention.
Let's plan to be a little uncomfortable together in 2012, shall we? Try things we haven't tried, set the bar so high, we have no idea how we'll ever make it over. Let's surprise ourselves with the truths we are willing to commit to writing, with the writing hours we are able to keep, with the risks we take in submitting, reading publicly, asking for what we want.
You're not alone as you make the crossing. We're all in this together.
You have all day. You have all week. You have all month. You have all year. What, dear writer, do you intend to make of them?
December 30, 2011
God Says Yes To Me
By Kaylin Haught
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes
December 27, 2011
When to fake a head injury
I owe you an apology. I have made some promises on this blog that I have not kept. For example, I promised to blog every Tuesday and every Friday, and I haven't. I promised to blog about the life poetic and about productive writing, and in these past few months, I've veered significantly off-topic into an exploration I do not know how to name or categorize.
This is what happens when we make big promises–we learn if and how we will be able to keep them. I am a big fan of the big promise, just as I advocate for the big hopes and goals and expectations. The inherent value of reaching high outweighs, for me, any disappointment that might come of not-achieving, or (as I like to think of it) not-yet-achieving.
The opportunity when we can't or don't follow through on a promise is to acknowledge that we haven't, evaluate if and how we intend to move forward, and then recommit to ourselves and / or others. This is where most of us feel miserably short most of the time, it occurred to me, as I read my son the Blue's Clues "I'm Sorry" book tonight. In this story, the green dog learns how to work through her fear of disappointing the pink dog when she breaks her crayon. I was struck by how many adults could benefit from this same, preschool primer on the steps of acknowledging and repairing something small that fear makes big between people. Most of us get stuck in the "hide the crayon and avoid the friend" stage for far too long, and many never emerge.
This brought to mind my first attempt at dating post-divorce. I was on the phone with this guy who I'd never met. We were having a lively repartee when, in parallel, he did a google search on my just-revealed full name. "My God, you're kind of famous," he blurted over my talking. Before I could respond, out came, "I hope you're not smarter than me." (I heard my mother's voice in my head correcting him, "Smarter than I!") I reassured him that I was terrible at the NYT crossword puzzle and that he'd own that turf in his previously expressed projection of our Sunday mornings under the covers together.
A few days later, an hour before we were supposed to meet for the first time, Mr. Sunday NYT texted me faking a head injury. (For your own sake, dear reader, in the era of social media, fake tragedy takes about two seconds to sniff out; I don't advise it.) So, here's this guy who changed his mind about our date for whatever reason. And instead of simply saying so, he lies. Multiple times. He's in the hospital. He will call me tomorrow. He really wants to meet me still…Except that I never hear from him again.
In addition to being dishonorable, it costs us far more energy to avoid an interaction we imagine to be uncomfortable than it does to actually just come right out and say it. I know this, because I've made my share of afraid-to-hurt-your-feelings-but-instead-I'll-muck-it-up-further mistakes. Renegotiation is confronting, especially when there is ego, emotion, reputation, or a desired connection at stake. But it doesn't have to be ugly, and it doesn't require lies.
In fact, I have come to believe that renegotiation may be the single most important skill for us to master in a life where circumstances, desires, and other people are always in flux. Even if the only person you need to level set with is yourself. By now you've probably figured out that unless you need to make sense of it for a plot twist in your writing, I don't recommend faking a head injury as a strategy for managing your promises in your writing life. But I do recommend it as a metaphor for taking yourself lightly when you catch yourself trying to sneak out of something that would be more efficiently addressed head on.
("Well, that was hard to tell my writing group that it's time to move on, but at least I didn't fake a head injury!")
As for the promises I've made here on this blog–they represent some of my very deepest dreams, and I am grateful you have taken the time to inhabit this space with me. It's been a complicated year, and I have not been as consistent here at Path of Possibility as I expected. I apologize for that. I'm not quite ready to renegotiate yet, but you can bet my fake head bandages that I'm working hard to come up with a new commitment to you that I intend to share here in 2012 and expect to stand by in the coming years.
May you hold yourself with compassion when you break your friends' crayons, may your renegotiations support the emerging truth of who you are becoming, and may you laugh at the sticky places where we all are inclined to take the easy way out–and may you find your honorable way.
December 23, 2011
Snow, Aldo
By Kate DiCamillo
Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees were still
bare and the sky was
gray and low and it began, suddenly,
to snow:
big fat flakes
that twirled and landed on the
black of the man's overcoat and
the black dog's fur. The dog
lifted his face and stared
up at the sky. The man looked
up, too. "Snow, Aldo," he said to the dog,
"snow." And he laughed.
The dog looked
at him and wagged his tail.
If I was in charge of making
snow globes, this is what I would put inside:
the old man in the black overcoat,
the black dog,
two friends with their faces turned up to the sky
as if they were receiving a blessing,
as if they were being blessed together
by something
as simple as snow
in March.
December 20, 2011
Consciousness is next to godliness
As far as I can tell, intention is the most powerful and mysterious kind of treasure map there is. Over the years, I have trained myself to dream big, intend wildly, and let the failures and successes fall where they may. In the coming week, I am going to invite you to join me in a process for setting intentions for 2012.
But first, I want you to stop what you're doing, take a deep breath, relax your shoulders, put down that shopping list, and take a good look around you–and within you. Clarifying what you want in the future starts with understanding where you are, who you are, and the shenanigans you're up to right now. So, I'm going to invite you to simply start paying attention and answering questions such as these for yourself:
What is my writing rhythm lately? (How frequently do I write, for what duration, at what times?) Is it working for me? (Am I enjoying it, producing as much as I want, writing at the optimal hours, etc.)
What am I reading? How is it serving / not serving me?
How do my sleeping, eating, socializing, imbibing, social networking, and exercising choices impact my writing?
How do my family life, work life, and community life impact my writing?
What makes me want to sit down and write? (And what keeps me there?)
When do I avoid doing the writing I am intending to do?
What do I love about writing?
What do I struggle with?
How do I know when I'm in the sweet spot with a piece of writing?
How do I decide when to edit (and when to stop editing)?
Who is in my writing life right now? (friends, teachers, editors, writing group members) Are they a fit for me? (Am I energized/inspired by their company? Do they give me the kind of support/feedback/camaraderie I want and need?)
What am I working on that pleases me?
What can't I seem to finish?
What do people tell me about my writing that seems accurate?
What do I believe about my writing life?
What writers / books / writing do I admire?
What do I admire most about my writing?
What do I appreciate most about how I conduct my writing life?
Are there habits, fears or beliefs that are limiting my ability to write in the way that I would like?
What am I grateful for in my writing life?
How have I written / submitted for publication / published in accordance with my goals (or not) in 2011?
How would I describe my writing in 1-2 sentences?
What did I learn about myself as a writer, or about writing in general, in 2011?
Maybe you'll want to write down answers to the questions above that speak to you. Maybe you'll want to come up with your own inquiry into who you are as a writer today. However you choose to go about it, my hope is that you will spend some time observing your writing life. Simply paying attention helps us see how our how our actions and desires are aligned–or out of alignment.
When we know the truth about ourselves, we have choices. Consciousness opens the door to possibility, and maybe even godliness.
December 12, 2011
Sweet Darkness
– David Whyte
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
