Words

Every time that I write I always think “I should be more reliable, steadier, publish more often.”

I choose a poetry book and treat it like divination, pick a poem at random and write the date in the top corner of the page. Underline what tastes good in my mouth when I say it. Jot down some spark of a thought at the bottom of the page. End it with “thank you”, and mean it.

I walked with my therapist yesterday, as we do, on forest paths bright with the violent orange mud of the Piedmont, slicked over with leaves, the aftermath of the hurricane. She said “Notice how willing you are to make everything your fault. Maybe some things aren’t your fault. Maybe you just want it to be on you, because then you’re certain someone will try to fix it.”

I write every day, in multiple places, take a childish glee in seeing my journal fill page by page. There was *nothing there*, and now there is something, pages of something.

But I probably should have been doing this longer, you know? Should have started earlier.

I write all the messages: text, private, direct, group. I leave pebbles for my loved ones, receive theirs. Say thank you and really mean it.

But I should be quicker to answer people, make sure I am being a good friend and person. I should be different. Obviously I should be different, and better, by now.

Yesterday, a huge tree had fallen over the trail, broken in two but still suspended in the air, its freefall stopped by the trees on the other side of the trail. A man came down the path in an ATV and my therapist said “‘I’ve walked this trail for a decade and never once seen anyone driving on it.”

I think about how my relationship to writing used to be that I mostly didn’t. Now I mostly do…every day, there are words linking up with words, myself connecting to other people, to my characters, to myself. In journals, in messages,

(and I can hardly believe it) in chapters.

I still make it wrong though. Not quite enough. My fault that it’s not quite right yet.

That man driving the ATV in the woods passed us by slowly, stately in sweat and cigarette smoke and good humor. Said “Now ladies, why did y’all knock that tree down?”

After he was gone, my therapist said through laughter “You really can’t make this shit up.”

And I say “thank you” to her and the universal writers’ room, with its magnificent sense of humor.

Self, self, beloved self…you wrote this today

with intent to share it. That’s enough. Thank you. I mean it.