Tonight's Poet Corner: Introspection
As I sat at my computer, after showing my girlfriend two videos, one of them being a slam poem about What Teachers Make, I realized that despite feeling sluggish after a huge meal at the local diner and now trying to settle my bloated stomach in 74 degree weather at ten o'clock at night, I still had to write an introspection. The truth was that even though I had a lot to talk about - my obviously positive feelings about DOMA and Prop 8 being dropped and the stay on same-sex marriage in California being lifted; the happiness I felt about my girlfriend staying for the weekend; the prospect of being at Pride during one of the most momentous weeks for the LGBT community - I didn't feel compelled to write about any of it because there's only so much you can wring a rag until the text that leaks out becomes stale and repetitive, like the monotonous drip-drop-drips of the remaining strains of water.
I left the lid of my ginormous laptop open and let my body fall against my bed. My girlfriend was perched on the mattress already, looking at Tumblr from her iPad. And, meaning to sound purposely whiny, I bemoaned my oh-so-terrible fate to her.
"I have to write an introspectiooooon," I groaned, as I felt the heat create a disgustingly moist feeling on the sides of my nose and the nape of my neck.
My girlfriend looked at me with more of a curiosity than a "Woe is you" gaze, either genuine or sarcastic. I kept going, just for the Hell of it.
"And I don't want to make you write it," I added, knowing that in the past, when I didn't want to write introspections, she had actually stepped in as a guest writer. She grew tired of that after three or so entries throughout our first year of dating.
"Write about pancakes," she suggested.
I arched my eyebrow, the way I always do it, whether or not accompanied with what a friend once called my "token writer's smirk." "That's not exactly introspective," I argued.
"Okay," my girlfriend sighed. "Then write about hamburgers."
"I didn't have a burger."
"Then write about your sandwich."
I was ready to laugh this off, remembering the bacon, chicken, and avocado club that had left my stomach reeling, and still not quite registering my girlfriend's point. I guess that's why she kept going, and I realized that she was being more poignant than I was trying to be, just by pointing out the simple beauty of the two hours we had just spent together, right after she had finished a two-hour long drive from her hometown to see me.
"Write about running through the sprinklers on a summer night," my girlfriend continued, and I couldn't believe I had almost forgotten about that so quickly - those damn yard sprinklers by a cute little house had pretty much attacked us during our walk. "Write about picking under-ripe blackberries in the dark. Write about my cardigan slipping off my shoulders, and kissing under the cover of night around strangers."
It wasn't like she had made any of that up. My girlfriend, despite not seeking out writing as a career, sometimes beats me out in the game of straightforward poetics. The way she summarized our evening thus far was, in a word, remarkable. And it reminded me that sometimes, introspection isn't about dissecting philosophies or stabbing a shovel into the earthy concept of life and death. Sometimes, it's just thinking about what you've done, what you've said, what you've eaten - how many stars you could count over your head, and how your lip-syncing Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" at the diner made your girlfriend laugh and love you just a little bit more.
So I'm not going to delve too much into what I did, but just leave it as my girlfriend said it. It's perfect that way. It's perfect taking those glistening fragments of the night and piecing them together to create a mosaic that may not exactly remain permanently etched in your memory, but it still means something. The method grounds me, makes me more stable, allows me to view the world matter-of-factly and, sometimes helps me gain more knowledge and understanding of it without being intense or dramatic. And as I prepare my rainbow suspenders, bowtie, and bowler hat for tomorrow, I'll be sure to keep the painting of Pride and San Francisco just as colorful as the painting of today.
Now if only I could be like Edward Hopper and actually have capabilities with an oil brush.
Writer's Quotation of the Night:
Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.
- Dean Koontz
I left the lid of my ginormous laptop open and let my body fall against my bed. My girlfriend was perched on the mattress already, looking at Tumblr from her iPad. And, meaning to sound purposely whiny, I bemoaned my oh-so-terrible fate to her.
"I have to write an introspectiooooon," I groaned, as I felt the heat create a disgustingly moist feeling on the sides of my nose and the nape of my neck.
My girlfriend looked at me with more of a curiosity than a "Woe is you" gaze, either genuine or sarcastic. I kept going, just for the Hell of it.
"And I don't want to make you write it," I added, knowing that in the past, when I didn't want to write introspections, she had actually stepped in as a guest writer. She grew tired of that after three or so entries throughout our first year of dating.
"Write about pancakes," she suggested.
I arched my eyebrow, the way I always do it, whether or not accompanied with what a friend once called my "token writer's smirk." "That's not exactly introspective," I argued.
"Okay," my girlfriend sighed. "Then write about hamburgers."
"I didn't have a burger."
"Then write about your sandwich."
I was ready to laugh this off, remembering the bacon, chicken, and avocado club that had left my stomach reeling, and still not quite registering my girlfriend's point. I guess that's why she kept going, and I realized that she was being more poignant than I was trying to be, just by pointing out the simple beauty of the two hours we had just spent together, right after she had finished a two-hour long drive from her hometown to see me.
"Write about running through the sprinklers on a summer night," my girlfriend continued, and I couldn't believe I had almost forgotten about that so quickly - those damn yard sprinklers by a cute little house had pretty much attacked us during our walk. "Write about picking under-ripe blackberries in the dark. Write about my cardigan slipping off my shoulders, and kissing under the cover of night around strangers."
It wasn't like she had made any of that up. My girlfriend, despite not seeking out writing as a career, sometimes beats me out in the game of straightforward poetics. The way she summarized our evening thus far was, in a word, remarkable. And it reminded me that sometimes, introspection isn't about dissecting philosophies or stabbing a shovel into the earthy concept of life and death. Sometimes, it's just thinking about what you've done, what you've said, what you've eaten - how many stars you could count over your head, and how your lip-syncing Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" at the diner made your girlfriend laugh and love you just a little bit more.
So I'm not going to delve too much into what I did, but just leave it as my girlfriend said it. It's perfect that way. It's perfect taking those glistening fragments of the night and piecing them together to create a mosaic that may not exactly remain permanently etched in your memory, but it still means something. The method grounds me, makes me more stable, allows me to view the world matter-of-factly and, sometimes helps me gain more knowledge and understanding of it without being intense or dramatic. And as I prepare my rainbow suspenders, bowtie, and bowler hat for tomorrow, I'll be sure to keep the painting of Pride and San Francisco just as colorful as the painting of today.
Now if only I could be like Edward Hopper and actually have capabilities with an oil brush.
Writer's Quotation of the Night:
Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled. Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled.
- Dean Koontz
Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.
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