Stay of Execution

Unsung

I got an email from someone who wants to feature me on his blog's "Unsung Bloggers of the Week" series.  He enclosed several questions he wants me to answer.  One was: How do you overcome 'Blogger's Block'? 

It struck me as a funny question.  I am more likely to get irritable or frustrated because I have too much to say and not enough time or opportunity to sit down and write than the other way.  Blogger's Block?  The weblog feels more like an outlet, a means of helping me capture and explore things that I notice and find worthy of remembrance, than it does a source of burden or pressure, something I must answer to. 

There are times I do feel some kind of "Blogger's Block" though.  The other night when I spent hours reading poems, I felt both amazed and a bit dejected and empty.  It's all been said, all these complicated feelings we have, this being human in the midst of a world that confounds us and takes our breath away, the poets have been writing about it better than I can.  It left me a bit hopeless, feeling clumsy at the keyboard. 

There are times when what is on my mind is too personal or political to write about.  Not political as in Democrats and Republicans, but as in the comings and goings of groups and organizations that I am involved with -- who is cooperating and who is not and who resents whom and where I fit in the mix.  And personal as in, I miss the man I dated this summer, and I wish I didn't.  And I feel strange and displaced in my house now that Housemate's boyfriend lives there too, and I wish I didn't.  I have pangs of envy when I go to put my laundry in the dryer and find their load in there, his and hers mixed together with an everyday intimacy that is missing from my own life.  These are things I notice but don't write about often, and I suppose in those ways I am blocked. 

The whole concept of Blogger's Block -- the pressure to "come up with" some kind of story or material that haunts someone at his or her keyboard -- well, I can't imagine it.  There are stories and glimpses of life everywhere.  Some of it I don't know how to tell, or I am afraid to tell, but it is never because I can't think of anything.  The conception of writer's block seems to be based in the idea of writing as artifice, and the idea that the real world -- description and thoughtful evaluation -- is not enough to write about.  One needs to come up with something else inventive on top of everyday experience.  I just can't believe in that.  I think you can mine everyday experience deeply and it will give you rich rewards.  Of course, I am an "unsung" blogger and maybe this is why. 

Practice

Here's a picture from practice today.  You can get a glimpse, but only a glimpse, of how pretty the cove we sail in really is.  Imagine gulls, seals, herons, egrets, and the splash of jumping fish, a fresh, salty, crisp breeze, and the setting sun and you'll be closer. 

The sailors in the picture are doing a drill to practice going around leeward marks.  Boat 17 has just gone around the pink buoy that you can see just to the right of that boat, and is heading back upwind, while the rest of the boats are still going downwind toward the mark.  Boat 10 is in the middle of a turn.  The finish line, which was also the starting line for this drill, is about where the photo was taken -- between 15 and 20 boatlengths upwind of the leeward mark.  I start them downwind so a big clump of them get to the leeward mark at the same time, and they need to figure out how to navigate a crowded rounding.  We do it several times in quick succession and sailors get to try different strategies.  I like the drill a lot, because in our practice races people get spread out and they don't typically end up as close together around the leeward mark as they do in this drill.   

Here's a second picture, this time taken below the leeward mark and looking upwind.  It's the same leeward mark rounding drill, but a different iteration -- see where boat 17 is?  Boats 1 and 3 will get to the mark well ahead of him in this rounding. 

For today's practice we ran through this drill four or five times, did five or six practice starts, and a couple of windward-leeward practice races. We finished with a crew race, where the skippers and crews switched places in the boats.   

Note how lovely our cove is from this angle.   It's not a bad office to show up to each day.   

White Tails

I walked up the dirt road from the boathouse, the dog beside me, in the thickening dark.  It wasn't dark yet, but it was grey, that post-sunset indistinct diminishing light that makes things hard to discern.  The dog bounced along with her distinctive three-legged hop, tongue hanging out the side of her mouth.  As I came around the barn I saw two big white tails in the grey air around the apple tree, right there in the front yard.   They bobbed and bounced and I peered after them.  I could barely make out the grey-brown bodies and so the tails hung suspended in the gloaming, twitching and bouncing like some kind of mischievous levitating sprites.  I knew the deer were leaping over the fence and bounding into the back field, past the pines and probably across the road into the woods.  The dog trundled along, unaware, but I stopped and watched the white tails springing away until I couldn't see them anymore. 

What I've Been Reading

I read Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner, which I enjoyed.  While reading it I decided that the way to tell whether something is chick lit or not is whether it uses brand names as shortcuts to tell you something about class and taste.  If you know what brand of shoes or what make and model car someone drives, where her sofa comes from or where she bought her suits, you're reading chick lit.  The book primarily drove home how difficult it is to be a mother. 

I read Bad Haircut by Tom Perotta.  He was a writing teacher of mine back in college and I remember reading one of the stories in that book, Wiener Man, in workshop form.   I like the way the collection of short stories hangs together and gives you a sense of continuity.  A couple of the stories hit me just so, with a pit in the stomach in a good way.  I'll read more of his work. 

At book group we discussed Strange Interlude, by Eugene O'Neill.  It was a great discussion -- about plays and why they work or don't work, and what you can get out of reading one and what must take place on stage.  We talked about Freud and his influence and how that showed up in the work.  We talked about the different constraints that a play has than a novel, and what kind of stories you can tell with each one.  The women in my book group are very smart, very well read, and very opinionated.  We respect one another, but we don't often agree, which makes it fun.  I discovered that I have very rigid ideas about backstory, and when an author is cheating.  I'm not sure I can explain it now.  I guess I think the best writing takes place almost completely in the now, and is sparing with backstory and flashbacks.  You have to earn the right to pull the camera back and do exposition, and I consider what a lot of authors do as "cheating".  I didn't realize quite how rigid that belief was.  It's probably pretty limiting.   Anyway, I note it here as a reminder to myself to look at that some more.  I know I haven't explained it well.  I came away from the book group meeting wanting to read more O'Neill, and more plays in general.  I've read very few. 

I'm currently reading "The Speed of Dark," which the hostess of book group was showing to someone as a good companion to "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime."  I asked about it, and she gave it to me.  I started it last night.  I think it's enjoyable, but not good.  What I mean is not noteworthy good.  It's fine; I like it, and I think I would like it even more if I were reading it right next to "The Curious Incident".  But it's not very skillful.  All this Dickens has spoiled me, I think. 

On my commutes, I'm listening to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  It's engaging, and peculiar.  Like Harry Potter for grown-ups, except much less exciting. 

Next up for book group: Brick Lane.  I'm still on an escapist kick, so I think my next one will be another Perotta book.  I haven't read any Franzen yet, so maybe that.  We'll see.

Darkness

I can't believe how it's so dark now, so much of the time.  It snuck up on me somehow.  Yesterday I looked out the window at 6:30 PM and it was dark dark.  And when the alarm goes off at 5:30 AM there's not a glimmer of grey out the window. 

Housemate and I collected the dogs for a morning walk.  Across the water you could see the lights on the pier where the oil tankers dock.  You could see blinking green and red lights on buoys in the channel.  There was light in the sky, clouds breaking open, by the time we got to the bridge.  "Oh yeah," I said.  "I forgot it's kind of fun to watch the morning start."  I'd been bemoaning the darkness, how hard it is to get out of bed in the chilly morning that feels like deep night.  It is that, but it feels good to be out in the dark air and watch the light come up. 

Walking past the school this morning I noticed a slug on the ground, wet from last night's rain.  That's not unusual.  There are lots of slugs around here.  But this one had a greyish body, with black spots all over.  I stopped and we peered at it.  A little further along we found another.  It's a leopard slug, according to Google.  Apparently they're common, but I've never seen one before.  I would remember. 

Question for Poetry Readers

I am looking for new poems.  I've been invited to read something at a friend's wedding, and I'd like to pick something funny and poignant, loving without being sappy.  Any suggestions? 

(Also, looking for excuses to expand my poetry horizons.)

UPDATE: My own forerunners are these two, although I'm just getting started looking.

While reading old volumes of Poetry Magazine I came across this one, which I was pleased to find on the web.  Not appropriate for a wedding, but wow. 

Ooh, and in my long abandoned Rilke volume I found the page dogeared on this poem.  It's fun to find these old friends, and to discover new ones.  I once read Rilke a lot, when I was younger and more restless, on dark windy nights like this one.   

UPDATE 2: Wow.  How can I write anything, ever again, when it's all been said so well by all these poets?

UPDATE 3:  I promise this is the last one.  Here's a poem I just have to link to, because it uses the title of this weblog, and because it's about a good dog. 

Disappointment

I just wrote a great post that got eaten by Typepad.  I'm not going to re-compose it.  Maybe it wasn't that great, but it was honest and maybe a little bit risky and I felt proud of it, so when I got the 502: Upstream Error message I was disappointed. 

In the original post I wrote about disappointment, a little bit, or about a small recent disappointment that was also a nice thing.  A fellow I've gone on a few dates with called me up, just after we'd parted ways, and stammered out a difficult confession.  He can't keep seeing me, for reasons that aren't any of your business, or even mine, really.  What I wrote about wasn't the disappointment part of that, although I was disappointed -- he's smart and fun, and I've been enjoying getting to know him.  I wrote about the relief he felt when I said I was disappointed but not hurt, and that I thought he was making a good decision and liked what he'd shared with me. 

I wrote about how we burden ourselves by imagining we can't speak the truth to people, especially people we like, and who we believe want something from us.  We pretend to feel things we don't feel, and we push away the nagging things that trouble us, and it gets very heavy, and when we finally admit the truth and people don't push us away for it it's such a big relief.  I wrote about more than that, darn it.  It was a good post, I think. 

I wrote about how careful I needed to be when he interrupted himself in the middle of his explanation to say, "Is this really hurtful?  I don't want it to be."  I didn't want to sound self-defensive answering that question, or sour grapesy.  ("What, me? Hurt?  By you?  Please.  Don't flatter yourself.")  But really, he wasn't being hurtful.  He was being honest, and when I said that and he could hear that I meant it he was so grateful.  I told him I was disappointed, but that I'd be pleased to reframe things into a friendship, because I like his mind.  And we're still just getting to know one another, so reframing isn't very hard.  As he took this in and relaxed into the conversation I lay on my bed listening to him open up, and smiled.  It feels good to show someone it's safe to be honest.  I'd rather have a friendship that's honest than a prospective romance with someone who's uncertain and conflicted, holding something in. 

I wrote about how I tend to take these disappointments in romance too personally, to heap blame on myself any time a man who was interested in me changes his mind.  There must be something wrong with me.  Often the faults I find with myself sting more than the actual romantic loss of the fellow.  This wasn't the case here.  I couldn't twist his reason into something wrong with me, even if I'd been inclined to be mean to myself.  Disappointed, yes.  Hurt?  No.  I hadn't thought about the difference before.  It's important, I think. 

Anyway, all that was written up nicely and presented well, in the post that got eaten.  Sorry to disappoint you with this one, instead.    

Rigging

I'll be posting soon -- gotta write about the World Tour of the Fabulous Icons, the band my dad's been in for 40 years, for example, and about what dancing to them made me think about last night.  I'll fill you in on what I've been reading and what's on deck.  And have been itching to write a post which will probably just amount to this: I'm sick of being hit on by married men.  It's flattering for a fleeting moment and then just makes me feel sad and icky about the world.  I talked about it with the Hooked on Tonics girls the other day.  It's happened to all of us more than it should, and it makes us all feel a little bit let down.   

But for now I'm scurrying down to the yacht club to work on our boat.  We're having fairly serious rig issues -- we've got a little bit of lee helm on starboard tack, and a little bit of weather helm on port, which means our mast is not centered in the boat.  Which is not fast.  I'll admit to being dumb and slow but not *this* dumb and slow -- we're struggling not to get last in every race, and are getting creamed by the slowest boats in our home fleet, as well as some dubious looking boats from away.  We've been starting well and sailing smart, but when we're side by side with another boat we just watch them walk away from us, to weather and to leeward.  We've been messing around with the shrouds but are going to get there early today with measuring tape and a helpful guy who knows a ton about these boats and some time to squint up the mast and see if we can get it centered and proper.   

Question

I am invited to a wedding.  I may bring a companion.  I can think of several candidates who might be entertaining escorts, in one way or another.  In your opinion, what are the most important factors in considering whether to bring a guest at all, and if so, and whom to invite? 

Trembling

I met with one of the trainers at the college to develop a weightlifting workout for the sailing team.  She came with some ideas, and as I told her about the moves we do and the muscles we use she got even more ideas.  It was great to watch her face light up as she said, "Oooh, I just thought of a good one."  Then she would walk me through the exercise, and I would react to it, and ask questions or request modifications.

She's tough.  I did some squats for her and when I got to the bottom of the squat she squatted beside me and said, "lower."  I went even lower, as low as I could, and she said, "lower."  Oog.  I went even lower, and wow, the top of my quads started to sing.  Then she had me squatting on this rubber ball thing and doing lat rows.  The ball thing (a Bosu-ball) was squishy enough that my quads were working hard to hold position in a balanced squat.  I got off and said, "That's great -- it will really help my team."  She got a gleam in her eye.  "If you want to make it a little harder, turn the ball over and stand on the flat platform."  I tried it, and after a few moments my thighs were trembling and the platform was shaking.  I kept trying to stabilize it but kept ending up in tremors that got bigger and bigger.  I had to straighten my legs to slow down the shaking, and when I squatted back down the shaking came back.  Wow.  "A little harder?" I said.  She grinned.  It was fun, although I feel pretty weak and out of shape.  Not for long, with this new workout plan, though.