The middle of the night.

After I wrote my last fascinating post, I was pretty tired and after I ate a bowl of pea soup, I went to to bed, even though it was only 8:30. I fell asleep pretty quickly while reading my book, The Reading Group, with my reading glasses still perched on my nose. That's how I woke up a little after midnight with the terrible urge to get up, which I did. I anticipated it to be much later, but much to my disgust it was not and needless to say, I turned on the computer, because that's what I always do when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Luckily, there were emails to answer and since then there have been more emails. Thank goodness that I know people on both sides of the ocean and even on the opposite side of the earth. There never needs to be a dull moment. Of course, I also know people who stay up in the middle of the night like I do and they are always good for an email or two. I am extremely fond of people like that and count them amongst my best friends.

I have run out of milk and fruit juice and now only have tea or coffee to drink and the coffee with artificial creamer, which I am not too fond of. I think I will drink tea, even though it's always either too hot or too cold to drink. Too cold, because I'm waiting for it to cool off and forget about it. Then I gulp it down and that was the end of that dubious pleasure.

With all the dawdling I'm doing, the night is going by quickly and the hour hand is moving towards the morning now. I have to keep myself amused for just a while longer and I don't think that will be any problem. I have some ideas for short stories for Six Sentences and I have to work those out. I also want to look at that map of poetry I was talking about. I think there are some stories in there that are longer, but may give me some more ideas. The whole map may be a source of inspiration, as it may waken some of those old feelings that I had back then and that were very unique to the moment. Maybe it is possible to rekindle some of that specialness.

There's not a lot of poetry in my life now, nor a need to describe my life in poetic terms. I don't feel that romantic about my life, not like I did back then. I don't walk around two feet hovering above the ground with my head in the clouds. I constantly try to stay grounded now and fear that writing poetry will cause me to become unstuck. But actually it would not be a bad idea to write in a simple poetic way about my life now, as long as I don't let too much sentiment seep in. It must be possible to write rational poetry that is grounded in real life and realistic, yet pleasant to read and surprising because of its word choices and sentence structure and brevity. Yet at the same time that makes me think that what I want to write then are very short pieces of prose. It's the structure and the rhythm that determines it, I suppose.

When you find yourself constantly in the state of being in love, but the object of your affliction is always just outside your reach, it makes you live with an unrealistic state of mind. One in which you are constantly bouncing from great happiness to great sadness and these extremes of emotions awaken all sorts of latent feelings inside of you, that look for expression and inspiration in the world around you. Everything you see that is of beauty attaches itself to your feelings and magnifies them to excruciating proportions, until your heart can barely contain them and you have to give expression to them in some way that you are capable of. A painter paints, a writer writes. Painfully so, as if she is crucified and constantly dying. It's a heightened state of mind that in the end is unsustainable and there will be a near death experience.

Anyway, that's how you stop writing poetry, because it scares you to do so. but I think I'm a little bit ready to try it again, though in a totally different manner. I'll pretend I'm writing prose and make it a poem afterwards, after the fact, because I'm not Robert Frost.

Have I given away enough of myself now? Or too much? Only God may know. I'm going in search of poetry now. I hope it is as interesting as I remember it to be.

I hope you all have a wonderful day. I will, because I have creative therapy, but then the groceries...oh no.

My other blog.

Ciao,
Nora