Sage Cohen's Blog, page 15

Dear Luna,

I met your father today

and held your painted face

in my hands. Only a poet

can give us our own grief

in terms we can understand.

As breath fills us briefly before

leaving, that windswept cliff

could not keep me from this

slender spine of his book split

between my reading hands.

Your life burns through mine

in metaphor, a flash etching

substance of image. Already,

I have mistaken your father

for his words as we each mistook

our daughters for their names

because this is what love does:

travels to the lowest ground,

then collects in the

carved out places.

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Hachikō, Hamachi and other wonders

Before I was married, my dog Hamachi (a German Shepherd mix) slept beside me in bed, her head on the "his" pillow, her limbs intertwined with mine. When I dated a man whose Australian Shepherd also believed she belonged on the bed, I expanded to a king size bed to accommodate the four of us. Years later, my husband voted my fuzzy bunk mate off the island of our bed.

(Photo by Jonathan Luchs)

When my son was born, we switched all the rooms around so that our bedroom would be a few paces away from his. This required our enormous bed to be squeezed into a tiny room, leaving only a small margin of walking space where Hamachi and her big brother Henry would compress their devotion into a tidy fit at the foot of the bed each night.

This past September, when I became a solo sleeper again, there was nothing I could do to convince Hamachi to return to the bed. In fact, she steered clear of the bedroom altogether at night. Instead, she would sleep directly across the threshold of the front door. Until tonight, when I was surprised to find a barely walkable pass to my bed. There were my two, old dogs woven once again into the sweetness of evening.

With her return, I understood, finally: Hamachi had been keeping vigil for my husband. I knew he was not coming back, but it never occurred to me that my dog might believe otherwise. It took her nine months to give up the hope that she might greet him as he came through that front door. As if, for her, he had gone out for a pack of cigarettes on September 1 and might be back with them any moment.

This brought to mind a story I heard as a child about Hachiko, a dog in Japan who would greet his master at the train station every day after work. When the master died at work one day and did not step off of the train platform that afternoon, the dog returned looking for him every day, for the rest of his life–another nine years.

There is something about the faith of dogs, their optimism–no, their absolute certainty–that love is coming for them if only they do their part, that moves me to my core. Hamachi and Hachiko, dedicated to causes around which they organize their lives and behaviors day after day after day, without ever wavering to consider what-if, or why-should-I.

Granted, the dog brain and the human brain are different. We each understand and express things in our own way, making us vulnerable to cross-species misunderstanding. But because I am prone to teasing out the figurative opportunities of any literal event, I wonder: what would I be willing to dedicate myself to so completely? What would I show up for with absolute conviction and love for months and years, without any promise of ever getting anything in return?

And as I sit with these questions, it dawns on me. I understand the reason why a story about a dog's vigil can reliably reduce me to tears is this: it symbolizes for me my relationship with writing. The love that brings me to the page has no answer. It has no master. It is a yearning into the abyss from which no solution appears. The writing is in itself the end. The yearning through words is enough. For the rest of my life, I am likely to be typing away at this threshold through which there are so many entrances and exits, yet no clear story line. Only my faith, my love and my words.

* * * * *

Do you have stories, symbols, or images that represent the writing life for you? If you do, I'd love to hear about it here. And if you don't think you do, I invite you to pay attention to what moves you from day to day. Chances are good that you'll start to tease out a story line or two that illuminate some truth about your life as a writer.

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It's easier with a buddy

My young son is of the age now where his life experience is starting to overlap with my earliest memories. One of my clearest impressions from my own preschool days is the phenomenon of being assigned a buddy. Buddies were generally paired up when we were doing an activity that would ideally benefit from a little extra accountability––such as crossing the street, approaching a swimming pool, or playing on an unfamiliar playground.

When, last night, my writing promotion buddy forwarded a set of poetry submission guidelines to me accompanied by an encouraging note, it struck me how much a little extra accountability can make a difference in the writing life. I seek out submission guidelines on my own all the time, and they frequently automatically land in my email inbox from various publications. However, it is a completely different experience when a friend who wants to see me succeed––who is, in fact, explicitly invested in seeing me publish and promote my writing as effectively as I can––shares info about such opportunities.

Twice this week, my promotion buddy has forwarded me publishing leads, and each time I nearly leaped out of my chair to send in my poetry immediately. Why? Because her energy and enthusiasm invigorated my own. And also, maybe more importantly, I knew that she'd know if I didn't follow through on these opportunities. Whereas, she would never know about the pile of submissions guidelines that were accumulating muddy cat paw prints and other general pet detritus as they lay untouched on my office floor.

Gretchen Rubin describes in The Happiness Project her need to receive gold stars for her good works. She is rather hard on herself about this and works throughout the book to lessen the hold of this particular need. This is valiant work, and it is certainly liberating to step aside of the need for affirmation, especially in the context of family. However, I'd like to propose an alternative approach that works very well in the writing life: find someone whose explicit job it is to affirm you.

That's where a writing promotion buddy comes in.

Here's how it works for my buddy and me. We don't hold hands as we cross the street, but we do talk every week or two as our schedules allow for a half hour. We each talk for 15 minutes about what we're doing to promote our books. We celebrate successes, ask questions, share tips and professional development information, and––significantly––affirmation.

As I'm preparing for our call each week, I generally I feel a little ache about the non-primary place my authoring life has in the context of my larger life these days, and I feel the weight of all I have not been able to accomplish. But as soon as I'm on the phone with my writing promotion buddy, I'm totally invigorated by my own report of what I have accomplished when I hear in my own voice my forward momentum. When my listener proclaims sincerely, as she often does, "That's so GREAT!" I have fresh appreciation for myself and my work. In short, I have my gold star. But an even more important energy source is my excitement about what my friend is accomplishing. Her commitment fuels my own. Her successes are little beacons illuminating what's possible in the literary life.

I generally leave our conversations with at least a few marketing and business-building ideas I'm excited to explore, strategies to attempt and books to read. That's a lot of value from a very brief interaction. Just as a half hour run in the morning energizes the rest of the day, this call often enlivens my week. Do you have a reliable energy source in your writing life?

Is there some aspect of your goals or commitments that feels a bit wobbly to you? Is there a realm of to-do or to-be that could benefit from a little extra accountability, friendship or fun? (You could have an affirmation buddy, a submissions buddy, a public speaking buddy, a celebration buddy, a freewriting buddy, a poem/page-a-day buddy, a goal-setting buddy…You get the idea.) I invite you to choose a writing buddy with a specific, shared goal/purpose and commit to a half hour once a week or even once a month where the two of you specifically address this single issue together. I think you may be amazed at how the little tender seed of desire in you sinks its roots and sends out flowers with even the most modest of attention from someone who is invested in your success.

Do you already have a writing buddy? Tell us about what's worked best for you.

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Mother's Day, blogging, and other ways to stretch

Yesterday, my son was gifted with a red and blue egg, each protecting its own, little wad of silly putty. The first thing he did was smoosh the two globs together into a swirly purple mash, stretch them out into "yours" and "mine" ends, and then start walking across the kitchen with his lump, while I stood in place holding mine, worrying about all the pet hair and breakfast crumbs the putty would collect when it fell apart between us. What I saw, instead, was that silly putty can be thinned to a whisper through a room without losing the integrity of its intention.

As I unwrapped a Mother's Day care package (a scarf for me in exactly my colors and a book for Theo by one of his favorite authors) sent to me by a beloved student-and-friend, my heart stretched like that silly putty across the house.

When I started blogging in 2006, it was a personal challenge designed to help me: 1. commit to a serious writing practice; and 2. find out if I actually had something to say every day, for a year. What I didn't quite comprehend at the time was that I was entering public life in a way that would rewrite me permanently, chapter by chapter, year by year.

The truth is, I never expected anyone to read or find my blog–in fact, I was counting on it. I was so completely terrified of telling the truth about my life, in writing, for anyone and everyone to see, that I was surprised to find myself still alive and well on the other side, each time I clicked "Publish." Five years since that first, life-threatening post, I have grown into the writing space I set out for myself when I decided to take myself seriously. The rigors of my daily writing practice organically expanded into: teaching online, authoring three books, launching an e-zine and multiple, new blogs and websites and more. Along the way, I have been communicating regularly and passionately with an ever-expanding, ever-delightful virtual community of writers, many of whom I share more intimate (and frequent) conversation with than the people in my "real" life–whatever "real" may be in this day and age.

I had no idea when I started blogging that I was entering the biggest and most uncharted relationship of my life: the one I have with you, dear reader.

In this glorious courtship of the written word, we can draw a dotted line between any two people/places/things and teach them how they resemble each other. This blog, along with its many predecessors, has taught me that we who write have a unique opportunity to tap those wellsprings of the universal human experience–and to soak in those baptismal waters together with gratitude and awe: We write! We discover! We don't know shit! How lucky we are to be in this cosmic mosh pit together!

I had no idea just five short years ago how much would come back to me from readers–that people around the world would share their compassion, their wisdom, their humor, their stories, and etch into me new truths, nourish me with surprising perspectives, and even (blessedly) look out for me and for my son, as we have moved through our many initiations of life together.

You who have offered me with such grace your truest thoughts and your deepest dreams, you who have shared your fears, vulnerabilities, confusion, ambivalence, celebrations and successes, I am wealthy with your gifts. We're all in this mystery together. How good it is to be traveling with you.

I'm wondering how you're stretching your writing life these days, and what's coming apart or coming together as a result? How have you "put yourself out there" and what have you learned from what has come back around to you?

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I'll have a side of "g" with that

There is a word that appears many times in my book, spelled completely wrong: reigns. The word and meaning I intended were: reins. (As in, "Take the reins of your writing life in your own hands.") Instead, I managed to say, approximately, "Take the (reigns) period during which a sovereign rules into your own hands." Not at all what I had in mind. What a big difference a little "g" can make.

At least three experts, including a proofreader, searched for such errors and didn't see this one. Of course, the minute the book was in print, the error was glaring. Such are the virtues of hindsight and hard copies.

I talk about this mistake every time I speak publicly. Why? Because I like to invite everyone–starting with myself–off of that inhumane perfection hook. We're not perfect, so why waste our time expecting to be? It's far more fun to stand up before an audience and confess to being a dummy. Believe me––I've tried it both ways, and I am now completely convinced through my own experience that revealing our own fault lines helps everyone around us take their own seismic activity a bit more lightly.

In my experience, it is exactly what we detest and want to avoid/hide the most––the fumbles and the foibles and those horribly embarrassing, awkward moments––that make us vulnerable enough to make contact with other humans. Who could penetrate a slick wall of perfection? And, who would want to?

One of my very favorite musical stanzas of all time, a gift to the listener from Leonard Cohen, reads/sings:

Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack, a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

I used to believe that when I got up in front of people to speak or read, I had to pretend to be someone other then myself in order to be impressive. Because I am a terrible actor, pretending to be someone impressive made me stiff, awkward, and awful. Many years ago, I gave this silliness up in favor of being the flawed, authentic me–excessive "g"s and all.

And as I was writing Writing the Life Poetic, I became conscious of how often mistakes and misunderstandings are often actually the seeds of new creation in my life. In chapter 21, I write:

I also like to collect mistakes. My friend Austin brought a jacket home from Japan that says "angel potato." This linguistic faux-pas  sums up for me the happy accidents of poetry; some phrase is fumbled completely, and an entirely unexpected new possibility is born. Angel potato. I see a kindergarten project, where toothpicks sunk deep in weeping, white flesh support withered, tissue-paper wings. I have always been a devotee of the potato — that otherworldly root vegetable. So unassuming and receptive to interpretation. What might happen next? Ecstatic orange? Its navel puckered into a contemplative heaven. Or: Shatter lamb. A history of cruelty and farmland. I want to know how far words can go.

And so, I invite you to "take the period during which a sovereign rules into your own hands" and write your own bylaws about the paradoxes of authenticity and perfection. Consider if there are any ways in which you straightjacket your creativity with some ideal of how you are supposed to be. And if you find any, cut a few holes, find the zippers, do whatever you have to do to let that light in.

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Dear Fritz Guest House,

I sleep the sleep of seagulls.

Sucked-out shell and salt.

I fold my wings in and tuck

my head under like the idea

of a ship and slip along

the surface of time. It has taken

41 years to prepare this body

for living. Beside my bed

the blown-over trees seem

to be aching with every

arm they have for someone

across this ocean.

Last night soaking in sulphur

floating out over our world

I met a man. I didn't know it yet,

but he had a tiny, conch-like curl

of plastic whispering secrets

in his ear. I joined the chorus

as we soaked our skin in stars.

He was a gentle man, worn

smooth by pain. We asked

our questions and the ocean,

like all great teachers,

did not answer.

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The death of the dream could be the birth of unprecedented possibility

I've tried to write about four different posts today. Because I don't have the heart for any of them, they dragged. I dragged. The posts were boring and I was bored. Why all of this slow-poking around? Because I've been avoiding bringing to this page what is true for me today. And I because I know all too well that resisting what wants to be written can short-circuit the entire writing machinery, I will resist no longer. Instead, I will practice what I preach. And tell you the story that is insisting on being told.

A year ago today, in the bathroom of my chiropractor's office, a little blue plus sign quietly confirmed what my body had been trumpeting: I was pregnant with my second child. From her very first cell division, this child was a huge presence in me. I felt occupied by not just a new life, but by LIFE itself. I was hardwired for the ideal of "family of four" and felt so grateful to be moving toward this lifelong desire, even at this "advanced maternal age." I was euphoric and exhausted––a hormonal cocktail I knew all too well.

Exactly six weeks later, the child occupying me completed its journey and departed. It was a long and agonizing departure that took three plus months––exactly how long it took my husband to find a new home and relocate there. By mid-September, both exits were complete. And with them, two of my most primary dreams evaporated.

Grieving dreams is complicated business. Often, they've spent a lifetime taking hold. And we have all kinds of projections about how each of our Happily Ever Afters might play out that have little bearing on reality––and often even have a meager capacity to actually create happiness. When Prince Charming turns out to be as uncomfortable a fit as a glass slipper and the castle reveals itself to be a fortress, we are left to sort out what remains in the rubble of a fantasy taken to its logical conclusion.

Every one of us has a fantasy-meets-reality story––or more likely, dozens of such stories––about our writing lives. I hear these almost daily from friends, colleagues, students and blog community members. We all have ideas of how it might feel to accomplish a certain goal, and we idealize getting there as a kind of arrival. A conclusion. When we get there, we expect euphoria, perhaps and are surprised to find ourselves feeling something else. Or, we simply discover there is no end, no arriving in the writing life. Only the next mountain to climb. The next book or story or poem or article to write. Or, we don't get there. Which leads to further agonizing and imagining about the promised land of "there and when?" that lurks mysteriously behind the veil of "here and now."

What I have found to be true in every case––in my personal life and my writing life––is that the death of the dream creates the space for what is actually intended to come through: what is, in the end, a better fit than we ever could have imagined. And often, it is so wildly off the mark from what we imagined, that it can take a long time to settle in with the strange bedfellows––or writingfellows––reality presents us with. Will this be a comfortable recalibration? Probably not. Will it be a worthwhile one? I'd bet all the chai tea lattes in the world on it.

A year after my miscarriage took with it my marriage, I am having unprecedented discoveries about who I am, what I expect from my life, and how I intend to live, write and love. In this intimate, new configuration of a family of two, I am as happy as I thought being a family of four could make me. In fact, I'd venture to say that I'm even happier. And I'm overcome with gratitude that the man I loved took the leap with me into marriage when we believed that was our destiny, and the leap out of marriage when it was clear our story as partners was complete. When the dream let go of us, we respectfully let it go. This, I have found, is where grace waits for us.

If you find yourself in a clash of what you'd imagined your writing life to be and what is actually becoming possible, all is not lost. Or, more accurately, what needs to be lost has become lost to make the space for what will soon be found. I'd suggest that you honor the dream that isn't taking shape (at least right now) in the way that you intended by grieving it completely. And then, get ready to be shaken open into a new paradigm of Happily Ever After. It may not happen tomorrow, or the day or the week after. But it's out there, waiting for your dreams to be dashed, in order for something more true, more wildly possible, to be revealed.

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Dear God,

I thought forgiveness was a choice

like wearing the black shoes with

the grey tights, face arranged

for the mirror. I thought I could

make a bouquet of my thoughts,

thirst clipped to the small bowl

of understanding. Politely,

I swallowed my life as if I

were smuggling myself in

until rage burned my bones

clean. Blood the story passed

from mother to child who

decides when it is time

to turn the page, his room

a cage of wobbly words.

Can I pet them, he asks,

understanding already

the gravity of permission.

Yes, this is how they like to be

stroked, under the chin and

down the back. Which is how

the words learn to trust him,

grow tame in his human

hands until they are unwilling

to leave at all, flight

trained to pen, to page.

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Freedom's just another word for nothing left to choose

It's great to have options in our writing lives. And yet, an unexpected series of events has led me to the conclusion that unlimited options may not be as beneficial as they might first appear.

This past September, I became a single mom. This reorientation of identity and circumstance has dramatically limited my financial and logistical options–it would appear for the worse. The choices I once had about leaving the house in the evening–to attend readings, lecture, teach, and have fun with friends–have evaporated. The money I once spent on books, workshops, travel, dog food, is instead funding my new, primary relationship with a divorce lawyer.

Bummer, right? Yes, and.

Something rather incredible has happened in this interpersonal limboland: spaciousness. I am no longer burdened with the decisions of which events to attend, which of my many dear friends I'll be able to support as they read and perform publicly nearly every night of the week. Nor am I burdened with the decisions of how to invest in my writing life–or where to designate funds for anything, for that matter…as there are no funds to designate. The simple fact is that I can't do any of it right now. Period.

Now, I'm not advocating being broke and stranded at home as a productivity practice or a way of life. But I do want you to know that, in my own life that has been quite abundant with options and opportunities since I started working for myself in 1997, such deprivations have facilitated a rather surprising liberation. In the absence of choice, peace is filling the open spaces.

The other day as the sun made one of its brief appearances between avalanches of hail, my son stood in a beam of light, marveling at the floating specks of dust that were ignited like diamonds all around us. This is the new wealth of our life together: diamonds of dust, necklaces of ABCs. No rush to do much of anything in a life that was once scheduled with hour upon hour upon hour of to-do's in a precarious tower like the ones my son builds of blocks, far above his own head. We giggle as he smashes them down, tells me that his voice sounds better than Mommy's as we sing The Farmer in The Dell, his longtime favorite.

These days, I spend evenings cooking for my son, writing, making my home beautiful and dining in with friends who show up with meals, stories, love. I have dug out from the tornado of clothes, paper and toys that seem to have been spontaneously birthed alongside my son. I am writing a business plan for my writing life, simmering five or so new book ideas in the back burner of my consciousness, and doing what I need to do to get the dogs walked, the mortgage paid, and my grief and rage transmuted to grace and forgiveness. My life and heart are full–in completely different ways than they were a short, eight months ago.

And despite the fact that I don't sing as well as my two-year-old, I've been singing a lot. Today, it's been Janis Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee," which has morphed into Sage Cohen's "Me and Theo Doodle Do," Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Theo's hand in mine, and we sang every song that toddler knew. Cause freedom's just another word for nothing left to choose. And nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free…yeah.

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Dear Divorce,

Your branding iron hovers over me

as if there were only one way to give

up hope. The lawyer has advised me

who owes what. How we can expect

to be judged. There are precedents

for everything in the unwinding of

yours from mine. I know there have been

endless sons shuttled from half-home to

half-home that won't add up to anything

whole. That this empty crib is a minor

chord thrumming through a great chorus

empty rooms. And I know my grief

is as common as a grocery store, overflowing

with hopeful rows of bright promises

not yet opened. But hear this, Divorce.

I made love a boat, and we all piled in.

When you come for me,

I'll still be rowing.

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