Rain Rain Blah Blah
Is it the incessant rain? (Which I still find pretty, but it makes the hiking trails very soggy) Is it the one-week blues? I don't know. I wrote for several hours today and then sat back and said, This sucks! It all sucks! So I'm in one of those blue moods. I was going to out for a canoe ride but then it started raining (AGAIN) so I went for a walk instead. I was not inspired during my walk.
One thing that has been inspiring is the evening presentations by fellow residents. These people are damn amazing. And I love Blue Mountain for bringing them altogether. First there was Paul Rucker, an amazing musician who blew us all away with his cello playing and also his exhaustive knowledge of heartbreaking Tuskegee Experiment. Then Robert Arnold, a really talented photographer and documentary filmmaker. Richard, who has spent his life working with community organizers who do "popular education" with Brazilian street children, Cambodian farmers, Ethiopian girls who are trying to resist female genital mutilation. Rachel: a mindblowing poet who lives in Israel. Norma, who translated for community groups visiting Nicaragua during the 1980s (she translated for my first healthworkers' delegation back in 1984, which feels like a lifetime ago), now working on a novel in prose poems, heartache, relationships, secrets, politics. It's all so powerful. I feel both inspired and humbled, and a little lost.
posted by Susan at 1:23 PM
4 Comments:
Oh! I am sad you are feeling this way! I get that way too.
Something that has helped me:
One of my writing mentors told me that self doubt is part of a writer's toolkit. That, coupled with a desire to write, he told me, leads to good work.
Here's to future good work to you!
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 8:46:00 PM
Susan,
Send me some pages.
Writing, art, is a bi-polar experience, I find. It's great, it's awful; it's insightful, it's confused; it sparkles, it's dull; you're worthy, you're an imposter, etc.
I also try to remind myself to have 'faith' in my abilities to make it work eventually, relax when it's not, to let perspectives blow in.
msa
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 11:41:00 PM
Thanks so much for your support, both of you. It means a lot. The good news is that today I got a massage and then wrote 9 new pages. Phew.
Thursday, October 20, 2005 3:15:00 PM
Susan, what is the "lost" feeling you mentioned? I'm imagining that writing about Tomie/Fumie is touching a lot of deep material. Do you feel like sending pages? Not for feedback! Just because I'd love to read about where you've been, and to share the experience with you.
I agree with Michael--writing encompasses extremes of feeling and self-perception. At Vermont, I was both a dedicated, motivated writer with a compelling story to tell, and a lost, depressed hack with nothing to say. Often I was both in the space of five minutes. But those 100 pages I came home with were worth it.
Thinking of you curled up with your laptop with the rain outside and the leaves swirling past your window. Send me something, if you can, and know that there are a lot of us out here who believe in your work.
Love,-Leanna
Friday, October 21, 2005 7:20:00 AM
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