Where Was I?

At the risk of stating the obvious, I haven’t written in this blog in a while again.  That’s okay, though, because if one doesn’t have much to say, it’s much better to say it sparingly than to spew volumes of empty words just for the sake of speaking or writing.

Given the sheer amount of writing I’ve had to do over the past ten weeks, I have actually enjoyed these prolonged silences.  The itch to write, to communication, to express, to articulate is ever present, but sometimes the words that emerge upon the page feel so contrived.  They are still a part of me, of course, but that doesn’t justify giving every single thought or fleeting perception a permanent voice.

My Creative Writing class is winding down to a close.  My final portfolio of completed work is due by December 11th.  While most of the difficult work is behind me, I am faced with the task of selecting and revising a number of pieces that I have written throughout the duration of this term.  I’m not being graded so much on the quality of my writing as much as I am on the effort I put into my revisions. 

This is a more daunting task than it would appear; I don’t even know where to begin in the process.  I’ve received very little negative feedback, which I absolutely rely upon as a focal point for improvements.  I’m my own worst critic, so I don’t trust my judgment about what would improve my writing, or if I’d be actually working against what I’ve done so far, just so I can say I revised it.

I’ve learned a lot of unexpected truths about writing, as well as about myself, through this class.  I’m looking forward to my winter break, but I will miss the class.  It has stretched me, challenged me, awoken me again to my love for writing, and has drawn things out of me that I didn’t even know were there.

Soon enough, though, the class will be over, the writing challenges done, and I will be left on my own to find a way to try to sustain the momentum.  I’m not quite sure exactly how I’m going to do that, though this blog will continue to be a part of my general ‘keep-on-writing-no-matter-what’ focus.

So, despite the week-long pauses, I am still here, still moving forward, still pushing myself to write, even if I am the only one who cares to listen.

Another Stab at Poetry

I recently had to write a sonnet on any topic, with only the rule of being mindful of rhyming schemes and syllabic structure.

Again, against my better judgment, I fling this poem irretrievably to the great “out there”:

Unwritten words lie hidden in pages,
Clamoring for meaning, their lonely plight
Germinating tender shoots seeking light,
Prisoners freed from darkened cages,
Impatient actors longing for stages.
Questioning my competence, my words slight,
Expression is elusive though I write.
Words emerging inspire, heart engaging.

Spilling forth as light in blackness of ink,
Words well from inner reservoirs, I bleed.
My heart, in language of its own, is heard
In fragile voices filtered as I think,
Few repressed to bury again as seed,
Languishing lone inexpressible word.

~ Joseph Grabowski

Silence = Busy-ness

I can’t believe it’s already been over a week since I last wrote here.  My writing class has me so busy these days that it’s hard to keep track of what I wrote, where I wrote it, when I wrote it, and what it was even about!  I feel like I am now just writing for the sake of writing, though according to my writing class, that’s precisely the secret to writing successfully!

To my defense, though, my attention has also been occupied by other situations over the past week.  I finally worked up the courage to upgrade my Tablet PC to Windows 7, which, since I was upgrading from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional, required a clean install.  The actual install was relatively painless; it was the reinstalling and reconfiguring of the critical software that I use on an almost daily basis that was tedious and time-consuming.

On top of that, my son developed a fever and a few other troubling symptoms.  Thankfully, the fever never crested above 100, though he clearly didn’t feel well for a few days.  Normally, we don’t panic over standard viruses that make the rounds, but with all the conflicting information out there about the H1N1 virus, I was hypervigilant.

As for school, I’m down to the final stretch for this term.  I still have a mountain of work ahead of me, and I’ve had my moments of overwhelming panic and hysteria.  Not for the first time, I’ve had the distinct thought of “What did I get myself into?!”  It didn’t help that all these situations, plus a few more unexpected complications, conspired together to rob me of quality sleep, thus intensifying my general anxiety and restlessness during the day.

I don’t want to neglect this blog, though.  Writing, however mundane the words I produce, has been an exhilarating experience for me.  My Creative Writing class is almost done, but I hope and pray that my long dry season is permanently behind me.

Brevity vs. Wordiness

For years, I tried to fire up the old writing drive within me, only to be met with sputtering misfires at best.  Now, though, I find myself at the other extreme.  Not only am I refueled and ignited in my passion for words, I fear I’ve been running a bit amuck with them, like a maniac with a chainsaw.

Okay, perhaps that’s being a tad bit dramatic…

Nevertheless, in rereading some of my more recent blog posts, I’m realizing that I’m overdoing it with wordiness.  So the question I’m now wrestling with is – what is a decent length for an average post?  Short and sweet often suffices, but what constitutes ‘too long’?

Then again, if I truly am writing for my own sake, does it even matter?

Storm Clouds and Chocolate Days

Most days are relatively uncomplicated.  A little drama here or there, perhaps, but for the most part, the journey across the seas of life are smooth sailing.  I find this to be ever more true as I age.  It’s not that the frequency of the storms have changed; it’s just that I panic less these days at every little storm because I know that God is in the boat with me.  I can see from the vantage point of time that each time I have emerged on the other side of the storm safe and secure.

Having said that, however, I can admit that I still have a tendency to feel overwhelmed when the storm clouds gather.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I’m not sure what the catalyst was, but I woke with an underlying sense of anxiety that I was unable to completely shake off.  Even now, I can’t always identify the specific source of such inner tensions; in a way, experiencing general anxiety is much like sensing an approaching thunderstorm while the skies are still blue and cloudless.  You just know, though you don’t know exactly how.

I used to call these my “chocolate days” because it seemed that the only tangible alleviations to my internal suffering, besides relentless prayer, was coffee and chocolate.  I don’t know what chemical reactions happen within them to calm my restless spirit, but they always seemed to help somewhat.  Mostly, though, when I feel like a washing machine spun horribly out of balance, I just hold on with everything I have, knowing that this, too, shall pass.

I had almost made it through the day, too, when I was waylaid by an unexpected encounter while picking up Noah from school.  I wish that I could spill out my heart here to process the emotions that swept over me during those few fleeting moments, but I am silenced by too many boundaries.  Someday this heartache will finally find expression in a story, or a novel, but for the moment, it is a quiet, private grief.

For the rest of the day, all the old unresolved sorrow, still lacking a closure I may never find, rolled and surged within me, and for the first time in a long time, I felt as though I may drown within those cold waters.  I am blessed, though, to have a wife who understands and shares the burden of that nameless grief, as well as friends who have a gift to say the right words at the right time.

It would be too easy to fall back upon my old coping mechanisms, plastering on a phony smile and projecting a false sense of “all is well” to those who inquire, while my heart breaks afresh.  Thankfully, though we are instructed to “rejoice always”, we can also take comfort in knowing that Jesus Christ was described as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. 

In fact, it is written, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.  Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

I’m always glad to remember that God is not going to reject me for my flaws and moments of weakness; rather, that He has unrelenting compassion on me, even when I least deserve it, as frequently as that seems to be.

So, after a good night’s sleep, and a hot cup of coffee, I feel much better today, and once again, hoist my sails to press forward through these uncharted waters.

And, if you’ve made it this far through this post, thanks for being along for the ride.

A Stab at Poetry

Against my better judgment, I’m posting one of the first free-verse poems I recently wrote in my Creative Writing class.

 

Propelled by ragged sneakers
The wooden skateboard glides
Across the asphalt dance floor
With kicks and spins and taps
A final pirouette before
Leaping gracefully into waiting hands 

~ Joseph Grabowski

 

Please don’t take my Poetic License away just yet…

In the Springtime of Writing

Where does it all come from? And where does it all go? I write, trying not to think too much about the formation of the words, but to let them flow forth naturally. Sometimes the ground is stony, requiring a bit of work to break up the hardened crust to expose the richer soil beneath, but other times, the ground is fertile, simply awaiting the barest hint of rain to bear fruit. Like a tender shoot arising from the earth, there is a deeper place from which it originates, a seed of thought, of feeling, lying dormant until the conditions are right.

I worry from time to time that my momentary springtime of writing is just that – a passing season in which the fresh green of life bursts forth, only to fade away again after the initial bloom. I have spent twenty years in a winter, in which the ground was frozen solid, seemingly lifeless. I remember countless times of dreaming of that warm spring day in which the words of my heart would take root and grow;  now that they have, I am finding myself battling fear that it is short-lived. After all, I reason, how many ideas, how many stories could possibly be inside me? And what is there to say that hasn’t already been said so many times already, in so many different mediums? The explosion of Internet media has only served to illustrate the lack of original, fresh voices. Oh, they are out there, but what hopes does one have to say anything of worth and value in a sea of voices all clamoring to be heard?

And yet, I know that there are a few stories in me that, as far as I know, nobody else has told. I’ve tried on occasion in recent years to write them, but have encountered writer’s block time and again. All this time, I supposed my writer’s block to be a dried up well, an inkless pen, a rainless cloud. Of the things that I have learned so far in this course, however, the one truth that has grasped my soul with an unrelenting ferocity is that writer’s block is not a burnt-out deficiency on the writer’s part, but an inability or unwillingness to face certain truths and feelings about one’s self and one’s own history.

Having been tasked with writing a number of semi-autobiographical pieces, I have found that the ground nearest my own doorstep, rather than being barren from the familiar passage of footsteps, has hidden the richest of soils under the hardened crust. The shovel broke the dirt reluctantly, but once that resistant first layer was excavated, I began to rediscover the treasures that lie beneath. Memories, beautiful or haunting, lie scattered about, their roots already established, the shoots rising up in response to the exposure of daylight and the watering of tears.

Some memories have started to become pieces of literary nonfiction; others have begun to find expression in a fictional retelling of the scattered bits and pieces of my own self, fertilized with imagination and a creative spark. Watching long-buried parts of myself spring to a new life has been amazing, though I strive not to think too hard about what I am doing. It reminds me of a passage in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” when Arthur Dent learns that the secret to flying is to hurl oneself at the ground and miss, and once in flight, to not give further thought to the impossibility of the act, for fear that gravity might take notice and rein one back in down to earth abruptly. In writing, I feel as though I have found my flight, as though I am currently coasting high above the trees, from a perspective I’ve not had in a long time. I want to stay up here, to feel the wind upon my face, to soar, to dive, to just float along to wherever the psychic winds carry me.

It used to be that the only thing that I could write was semi-rambling pieces about my desire to write. (And so far, in this blog, I’m continuing in that fine tradition…)  In thinking about that now, I realize that mindset is characteristic of who I am, of who I’ve been throughout my life. I was a child who did not walk until he knew he could. I did not speak until I was sure of what I was saying. My mother tells me that, when I finally spoke, I was speaking in complete sentences. Looking at my life from the bird’s eye view of memory, I can see how almost everything I have done has been after a long bout of self-doubt and perseveration, of anxiety and of fear – the fear of failure and the fear of success.

Now, as the gardener of my own memories, thoughts, and feelings, even though I am beginning to see life spring forth, I am afraid that after all these years, this is not a spring at all, but a sort of Indian Summer, a releasing of those things I have carried for far too long. Once they are grown into whatever it is that they are meant to be, what will be left? Once I tell the story of my own unique heartbreak and loss, will there be anything left for me to tell? Still, the joy of seeing the resurgence of hope where I had all but given up on the dream of writing spurs me on to dig up what I can, to plow the soil, nurture the sprouts as they emerge, and to simply sit back and let them grow.

It is, after all, for nobody else I write but for myself. Even if no other eyes ever read the words that spill across the page like blood from my vein, the mere act of writing has proved to be very therapeutic and freeing. The winter winds may blow again tomorrow, or next year, or not at all, but I will endeavor to keep my hands and heart busy for as long as possible, hoping that I am not in a cycle of seasons at all, but on the other side of an obstacle that has finally been overcome.

Better to write for yourself and have no public,
than to write for the public and have no self.
~ Cyril Connolly

Some Humor Not My Own

In lieu of anything remotely original today, I thought I’d share an oldie but a goodie.  I don’t know where this originated from, but I love it…

"Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. How old are you?.... "I'm four and a half" .... You're never 36 and a half .... you're four and a half going on five!

That's the key. You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number. How old are you? "I'm gonna be 16." You could be 12, but you're gonna be 16.

And then the greatest day of your life happens .... you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony .... you BECOME 21 ... YES!!!

But then you turn 30 .... ooohhh what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk .... He TURNED, we had to throw him out. There's no fun now.

What's wrong?? What changed?? You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40 ..... stay over there, it's all slipping away ........

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, you're PUSHING 40, you REACH 50 ..... and your dreams are gone.

Then you MAKE IT to 60 ..... you didn't think you'd make it!!!!

So you BECOME 21, you TURN 30, you're PUSHING 40, you REACH 50, you MAKE IT to 60 ...... then you build up so much speed you HIT 70!

After that, it's a day by day thing. After that, you HIT Wednesday .... You get into your 80's, you HIT lunch. My grandmother won't even buy green bananas .... it's an investment you know, and maybe a bad one.

And it doesn't end there .... into the 90's you start going backwards .... I was JUST 92 ...

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again .... "I'm 100 and a half!!!!""

-- author unknown

As of this writing, I’m 41 and a half!  Only five more months to the big ‘42’…

‘Me Too!’

Do yourself a favor. 

If you ever get the inclination to write, be it a blog, an article, an essay, whatever is straining for expression within you…

Don’t Google the topic or thoughts you are writing about until you’ve written them, committed yourself to them, and hopefully, put the words irretrievably ‘out there’.  It can be extremely disheartening to sit down to articulate any flicker of thought or emotion, only to find that there are dozens or hundreds of blog entries on the Internet having already expressed what just wrote.  Your efforts, you feel, are wasted; instead, it seems like you might as well just toss off a quick ‘me too!’, or if applicable, clicking the ‘Like’ button.

Why bother at all?

Simple, really.  Every person has a slightly (or not so slightly!) different perspective on life.  Our own histories and life experiences provide us with a perceptions that other people may never have experienced, or a common bond with another living breathing human being suffocating in a sense of societal isolation.

Our words hold the potential to ease another person’s loneliness, to offer a sense of community, to inspire, to touch, to comfort, to humor.  Even merely writing words that have already been expressed hundreds of times lends validity to the universal truths of the human condition. 

The more that we see that others feel the same as we do, the more we realize that we aren’t crazy after all.

Most of all, though, write like somebody cares about what you have to say, however trivial or insignificant you imagine it to be.  It may just be your particular style and voice that makes all the difference in the world to someone.

So, write your heart, cast it into the sea, and it will find its way to where it’s meant to be.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. ~ Somerset Maugham