This morning finds me happily installed at a small window table in the tiny Haute Coffee café in Concord, having just burned my tongue on my chamomile tea while eagerly awaiting the arrival of a bit of breakfast from the kitchen as I compose some new verses of poetry in my journal (and this note to you!).
I just spied the morning social media post of a lovely friend who lives several states away, and I am smiling seeing photographs of her morning cup of coffee that accompanies some poetry she is reading this Saturday morning. A well of caramel colored warmth bubbles up in my chest. I’m in good company. Kindred spirits are never far away, even when they aren’t physically here with me. So many dear connections for me have sprung from a love of reading, writing, theatre, and creativity. I feel so grateful that my life is full to the brim with souls who share these curiosities and practices.
After some hemming and hawing, I decided to write this post first in my journal before typing into it Substack. After a work week spent clicking on emails and digitally highlighting and commenting on student work, I crave the way a pen feels in my hand (sturdy) and the sensation of the ink spilling out in cursive on the creamy blank paper (satisfying) of my newest journal (pictured above; I’m in love). I prefer writing by hand whenever possible, especially when there is no sense of rush or particular direction to what I am getting out onto the page. Writing in cursive feels especially good when it comes to following my stream of consciousness in poetry or prose - something about the way the letters loop and linger, seem to say “I’ll get there eventually. I’d rather become beautiful along the way. Practicality and punctuality might be overrated (at least in this moment).”
There are few instances when I won’t take extra time to seek or coax out the beauty to be found in each moment, even if it means I miss my bus as often as I make it. I’m a fan of going the long way whenever possible, preferring to linger like the loops of the cursive I love so much. Slowing down and being a bit “extra” is a personal preference.
For much of my undergraduate years as a double major in History and Theatre Performance, I was told by professors that I could stand to be more concise in my writing. I did my best to take their suggestions on where to trim and tweak and tidy my words. I almost always felt resistance to their well-meaning nudging though. There are so many corners of my life where I’ve felt constricted: in my budgets as a teaching artist; the tightness of my spine during the seven months I spent on disability in 2009 and 2010 due to a lower back injury; in the motley crew of ruminations and rituals that OCD eagerly invents for me to keep me “safe”. For me, words are free and need not abide by rules. These days, I savor spending as many words as I like, without worrying about bouncing a metaphorical check.
The rain is pattering outside on the awning of the café and nearby, a toddler is making her final arguments in the case against her grandmother regarding her belief that the café does indeed make chocolate chip banana bread, despite its absence in the pastry case this morning.
I breathe in and exhale, noticing my shoulders soften just a little, despite a small spot of tension in my upper back. I am due to work at Orchard House in an hour and a half, but in this moment, I have nowhere to be and nothing else to do, save scribble away and sip my tea (that has now cooled to a reasonable temperature). As someone with three jobs and an ever growing list of creative projects and ideas in-progress, I relish these blank pockets of unstructured time when I can let my mind and heart off-leash, and let them run with no defined destination in mind.
As much as I lean towards the long winded, I’ve been enjoying the punchy power of short poetry lately (Rumi, I’m looking at you!), so I challenged myself to draft a trio of three (relatively) short poems, and am sharing them with you this morning…
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