I claim no copyrights to these words or this music.
Hello?
Near the end of March, I was approached by three female poets, and asked if I would join them for National Poetry Month, writing a poem a day for NaPoWriMo 2019. I was more than a bit hesitant. I explained that I hadn’t been writing for almost an entire year. Physical issues, and trying to put together a manuscript of both poetry and prose, had taken up most of my time and energies. I didn’t tell them that I had gotten way too comfortable in my role as a Hermit. And, although I had actually thought about doing just such a thing, I’d kinda squirmed away from the reality, almost every time I’d even let myself consider it. I had become “Comfortably Numb.”
However, these were three women I had known almost as long as I had been posting my poetry online. Individuals I both admired and respected for their poetic skills and the truths I’d found espoused in their poetry. And each one assured me that they had very similar misgivings. I reluctantly agreed, took a deep breath and created a plan for doing what I’d just agreed to do. I decided to use my onsite media file for inspiration, choosing an image (one I had created, or photographed) for the inspiration of the day, then promptly sat down, did that, and wrote the first piece. Not once realizing I had made my job much easier than in the preceding years when I’d done it.
Getting up each morning, knowing one has to write a poem, making it as coherent as possible, then creating the format in which it is offered, and added to that is the need to read and respond to any and all comments, and present it all to public viewing is a heavy load to carry for an entire month. And I am far from the days of my youth, something I am reminded of each year I do this because my birthday is in April.
I really didn’t understand what a step up it would be to write the thing the day before it was to be posted. It allowed a twenty-four hour period of time to do all the other stuff that needed to be done, but also the time to come back to what I’d written the day before with fresh eyes and ears, making corrections and changing word choices that only hopefully enhanced whatever I was creating. It was a far more relaxed experience than it had been in the other years I’d climbed this mountain and held my breath, or panted my way through whatever days were remaining.
And best of all, I learned something, without the need for that pin prick or medicated state, what is important to me. I love writing. Love getting my thoughts and feelings outside of myself, not just in poetry, but in all the other things I do using these skills. I thoroughly enjoy expressing my thoughts, my beliefs, and my sometimes weird but wondrous ways of seeing the life that surrounds me.
Writing something down makes it noteworthy, memorable. It enhances memory as nothing else can or does. Searching through my own media files, pulled up memories that I could use and did. But, it also reminded me that I do write prose as well as poetry. So, I am back here today, shaking my own slouched shoulder, awakening myself from my own comfortable numbness. April is now behind me, but I have the rest of my life to live, and to continue in a manner that pleases me.
When I came here this morning, I realized that I didn’t have the faintest idea what I might write about. I closed my eyes and the opening line from Pink Floyd echoed through my thoughts, so I ran with it. Not only is it a long-time favorite for several reasons, it also includes that wonderful guitar solo, one that brings back memories from another life I lived long ago, and shared with the most creative and unique individual I have ever met.
Question: How comfortably numb have you become and why? Hello, my name is Elizabeth.
1sojournal 
Oh, I hear you, fellow hermit. I have auch a quiet routine, sitting at my desk till noon, then foraging out to store or shore, then scuttling back to my cave. I so admire the writing you did in April. Your gift of words never fails you. I am glad you are still planning to write and post as you feel moved to do so, as I miss your words when you dont. But I share your decreasing energy to a degree that actually alarms me these days. However we muster on, because we are writers and writers write. And, as I said with some flair to the pharmacist yesterday, arm upraised, “I’m Still Here!” Hello. My name is Sherry. Smiles.
Hi Sherry, glad to meet you, lol. Have you noticed that decrease in energy doesn’t reach the mind as quickly as the rest of the being? My mind continues to feed me new ideas of things I could do, or try, or possibly be. And it doesn’t seem to tire of doing so, while the rest of me goes, hang on a minute, remember me? I’m an old woman. It just shrugs and continues on its own merry course. Seemingly sure that eventually I’ll catch up. Maybe I will, most likely I won’t, but just like you, I know that I too, am Still Here. Hugs kiddo,
Elizabeth
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Retirement has numbed me somewhat. Since I no longer have someplace I have to go five or more days a week, I don’t feel the push to get everything done NOW, including writing. I figure it will be there when I get around to it.
Hello, my name is Kathy. 🙂
Hi Kathy, good to see you here. I understand about retirement, but found it a bit different. I was retired early, on disability. I was doing a lot of teaching, and had to lug my stuff around with me. With my bad back and arthritis in most of my joints, it got really difficult. But, then moved back here to the city of my birth to help care for my aging Mother. I came very close to becoming just another couch potato during that first year. But then realized I could write online. Started this blog ten years ago, and slowly created three more to keep my interests from overlapping, as I discovered the global online writing community. Got very involved in the prompt circuit, even doing some prompts of my own, on occasion, and used two of my blogs for online teaching. However, over the last year, I used most of my time trying to finish a Poetic Memoir, I began several years ago. It’s not quite done yet, but far closer to completion than ever before. This latest experience with NaPo, really did reignite my love of writing and I find that a very good thing, because I feel more alive when I write than anything else I’ve ever done. When I am not writing, I have a tendency to take on my Hermit’s mantle, crawl deep into my own dark cave, and shun the world with all of its shenanigans of bright lights and glistening empty attractions. And again, happy to see you here. Have you met Sherry? She’s one of the hostesses at Poets United, and does online interviews.
Elizabeth
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Well hello, Elizabeth…good to know you. I loved this write. And certainly understand what you say, when you say, you had no idea what you would write when you began. I think for me, I go through the day, without defining all the thoughts that gallop through my mind, only when I sit down to write, it is like putting a magnet in a pile of fillings, and things come together, I can get the thoughts out where I can see them. And somtimes they are a surprise. I might say to myself, I didn’t know that was what I was thinking. I still love to write to the prompts. I don’t really know when I began, or began seriously, I think I had been writing for about 25 years, when I decided I needed to accept that part of me, I am a painter, but I am a writer too. And it is through your help and support along the way, I still love to write. Some of what I write, is so ordinary, I wonder….but then something happens, and I write something that even surprises me. I love to read your writing, always clear, thoughtful, and illuminating. So glad you have discovered the love of writing. I look forward to reading your every word. xoxoxoxo
Hello Annell, good to see you here. I love your metaphor of ‘putting a magnet in a pile of fillings’. That is so real to me and I often feel the same way (now that you painted that image in my head). NaPo helped me remember just how much I do love writing. Starting with a blank sheet of paper and filling it with words that hopefully paint on image on someone else’s thought patterns. Have to confess I’ve been back to this particular page several times since posting. Not to read the words written here, but to listen to the song that introduces it. Forgot how much it means to me, and how much it was a huge part of my existence for a while. I know the song is about drugs and the dulling of awareness, but that isn’t what it speaks to me. It was far more about settling for less, dumbing down our own potential in order to slide through present moments without expending the energy that brings those moments alive and lets them breathe. Making life the ‘same old, same old’ instead of creating it new, one moment at a time. And that is just what writing does for me. It forces me to reach beyond that dulling sameness, to make something new and hopefully interesting. And it always reminds me that I do have a mind. One that works better than good, and is not the defective thing I was told it was in my childhood. I thank you for all of your words and for the support and encouragement you have given me over the years. Couldn’t have done it without people like you and Sherry helping me. I’d like to introduce you to Kathy, she’s good and well worth the trip to her site.
Elizabeth
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hello. my name is Neil. I’ve already said more than enough. somewhere or elsewhere. and though I hold my own tongue in terrain like this, can’t disallow making a comment here. good good read, what you said. pleasing. I like being pleased. pretty self-centered I know, but that’s me! 🙂 if you know my intent. obvious how you connect with folk by the touch of your words. I am happy, happy for you. keep doing what you do. it is right for you and you are right for it.
Hi Neil, so glad to see you here. Was hoping you’d take the bait. And yes, that makes me as self-centered as all the rest of humanity. It’s a quality I do admire in certain individuals. I don’t believe we really begin to grow, or learn, until we make a concentrated effort to know our own person (something that can appear) as self-contenteredness to others who usually believe they know better than we, just what we need to be. I’m fairly certain that those individuals are actually the ones who are self-centered. They want us to be more like them so they can be more comfortable in their own skin. And that is not what I find in you, at all. I love conversing with you because you make me think. Want proof? Just look what you did with that self-centered comment you just made. I could probably go on for several paragraphs with myriad examples, but I won’t. As for your other comment, I am pleased as punch to know that you think I reach out to others with words. But, am curious. Isn’t that what we, who claim to be writers, are all about? Oh, oh, I think maybe I’ve gotten myself into a corner by asking that question. Writing, for me, has always been about trying to understand my own mind and how it works. Left overs from childhood, the steel pin in my head, and a family that wasn’t too sure that I had recovered as much, or as well, as the doctors were want to say. I started writing in order to better see my own thinking. And that initial urge still remains within whatever I write. Writing is always seeking and finding the clearest path to whatever truth I might be seeking. And although I know that my experience as a child created a life-long champion of the underdog, I can also see how it might be seen, or even defined, as a certain self-centeredness. I actually started out to simply say how glad I am to have you back after all of these years of silence, only to hear myself prove that I am a writer because I have a certain vested interest in my own person. LOL. I love it. And must thank you for doing what you do so well. Make me think. Suffice to say, I really am glad to see you Neil,
Elizabeth
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