In all my copious, authorial experience (and by "copious," I mean cursory, and by "authorial," I'm sure Sam would read as "dear diary" or "scrapbooking"), I never knew what the piece I was working on at the time would ultimately end up being. I trusted that it would eventually be something, good or bad, so its evolution, apart from my influence, was all part of the process.
If not already evident, I should confess that I am powered by an often convoluted thought process; I think in circuitous brain paths. My overarching philosophy when it comes to writing is this: why shape something, whether it be essays or poems, or even e-mails to friends, when it intrinsically wants to shape itself?
Naturally, then, my writing often starts at one place, mills about through a labyrinthine synaptic maze, and finally ends up possibly quite far from where the initial trajectory of the idea would have dictated. But of course, when I say 'my writing,' I feel like something of a fraud, as I have never really considered myself a writer.
So enter this gratitude blog. Who knows what my intentions are for it, especially if I don't? And who can say where it is going or will end up? All I know for now is that I have consistently sat down for the past five days and devoted a chunk of time to write, chunks of time that outweigh all the chunks of time I have devoted in the past 50 days put together, possibly even 500. I have, throughout my day for those five days, thought about what I wanted to write, what is interesting enough to keep my attention for so many words, what are the things I am grateful for in each passing moment.
To me, putting down my intentions for this blog risks cursing it to failure. When I was in grad school for a creative writing degree, I would buckle down wherever I could and work on poems. The ones where I had a stated goal, a singular vision for where it needed to go, were also the ones that never saw life. The ones that I gave freedom to be whatever it ended up being often were my favorite pieces.
There was one particular poem I wrote midway through grad school when I was locked in some kind of ego struggle with another student in my class. (How I hated her.) She was passionate about jazz, loved everything about it, especially the free-form, scat type of jazz. I, in turn, hated jazz. Not that I already didn't have inclinations to hate it. I just couldn't get behind any type of music that uses sounds like "squee-di-be-zow" or "zah-ba-do-zay" in a way that implies it means anything more than gibberish. I mean, really. So the foundations of my hate were already laid; this feud just gave me fuel.
So I sat down one particularly venomous day and wrote a poem about how I hated jazz, how it hurts and annoys me, the cacophony and nonsense of it all, the pretension. I did it, really, to be a douche. What I ended up with, however, was something totally different:
---
because i hate jazz
i fear i will never become a real
poet can i not think freely
like great poets around me
not find a tune to hum it goes
everywhere where i can’t follow
while penning my poems on the bart
train from sixteenth street to union
city with paper thin speakers wailing free
jazz from the dollar stereo behind
me and would i be so vain if i tuck
my pen behind my ear and believe
that i can record a record with trumpets
drums saxophones a kitchen
sink and call it jazz and leave this
lonely unsellable world of poetry
since there is no single right
way to play jazz anyway then I could too
land gigs and fans who come to listen
where i sell them stories that i
have always been the greatest fan
of jazz and did you know i also write
poetry yes i do and i find
that listening to jazz helps my eyes
open and my head
bop and my creativity
fertilize but because jazz
spreads weeds across my otherwise
plain jane brain i have no tour no fame
not even courage enough for open mic
nights at the local barnes and noble they
can hear in my every word
that i’m anti-jazz a façade
of a poet hiding all the blah
inside because if each smoky note
floats over my head i fear
i may as well stop writing
at all find a reliable day
job or consider getting my bar
tender’s license and finding
a dim club of my own pour
drinks for patrons sneak an extra
shot in the cosmo for the hot
dancer who comes in on wednesdays
in tight jeans with an entourage
befriend my barback have drinks
after hours drive home woozy through
flashing stoplights sleeping bags
on the steeple of the church
and wonder how did i get here
how the hell and remember a song
from a musical years ago
and the first poem i wrote
afterwards in the margins of my playbill
riding on the last train out
of the city with a very ex
girlfriend dozing on my shoulder
---
Had I kept to my original intention and demonized the hell out of this woman (how I hated her) and her jazz, I don't think I could stand to read this poem again and willingly revisit the negativity. Instead, I have something that I am actually quite proud of, and pride in my work comes pretty rarely for me.
So, as I prepare to step out of my cranial labyrinth, what are my personal intentions for this blog?
Just to continue doing it. Should it help me be a more grateful person, give me an avenue in which to find motivation, become something I look back on years later with a sense of pride, well, that'd be nice.
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