Dinner, a movie, a cook, a cook, a poet-and always, love

Blog number 3:  Dinner, a movie, a cook, a cook, a poet—and always, love

Dinner and a movie.  Julie & Julia.  I loved Mama Mia, that’s all I will say, love.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone to a 10:55 showing or eaten steak and baked potato and, then, popcorn with lots of butter and salt.  Others, I hear, loved the movie.  I loved going to a movie, being in a theatre, having someone sit next to me (if only an ex/or especially an ex), instead of my usual popcorn and DVD at home in my rocking chair, alone but for my grandsons’ stuffed dogs gracing my living room.

Seeing a current movie gives me something to talk about, to write about.  A writer’s prompt.  Cooks and writers, both artists for sure.  I understand working for a public agency, don’t many artists inhabit the cubicles of many a federal or state agency? I am fortunate, I work with other artists in my role as “program associate” and, unlike, perhaps others, my work, however trivial and routine, is work spirited in the arts and I do feel blessed to be in the realm of women and men who want to create, who for them creativity is not always just about pleasure, but it’s a necessity.  (Also, I might add, I am blessed with an office and a window—the fourth room I’ve occupied in the eight years I’ve been at the University. but yes, my first two rooms were cubes.)

Where was I?  Julie & Julia.  Julia, bored, wanting something to do, wanting to be someone, blessed with a supportive and loving husband.  Julie, bored (maybe), wanting something to do, wanting to be someone, blessed with a supportive and loving husband.  Julia, it seemed, could afford to do something, become someone—spend eight years working toward publication.  Julie, however, how did she manage to work fulltime, cook every evening in a cramped, small as a cardboard box, kitchen, and blog!  524 meals in 365 days!  How did she afford the ingredients for all 524 recipes (and why didn’t any of them gain weight)?

How does an author write without a room of her own (what did Virginia Woolf write about A Room of One’s Own)?  I think we need space.  Space to empty monkey mind.  Space away from “have to do’s” and doing.  But, like Julie, I think we writers can write in a cramped kitchen, at a dining room table, or at our desk at work during our lunch hour or breaks—if, we have had the space beforehand to contemplate, and murmur sweet or sour, hot or cold delicacies.

I admire Julie’s perseverance, and as a writer, I can learn from her.  What motivated her?  What fortified her?  How did she handle set backs and criticism by family and friends?  I admire and I’m challenged by Julie’s day-to-day productiveness, and the success of accomplishing her goal.  However, I’m not challenged enough to say, I can do it, or even I want to do it—I want to write 524 poems in a year (why 524 and not 365)! 

There are online challenges where writers write a 30,000 word novel in 30 days (or some such challenge), and poets have been known to write a poem a day—but for how many days?  As for me, a poet, the last thing I need is a deadline.  Writing deadlines, for me, equal anxiety, and, yes, sometimes fear.  Writers’ block!  (However, as a worker bee, deadlines are sweet and savory.  Deadlines, for me, help me get a job done.  A job done is something my self-esteem can stick to.)

I am committed to posting blogs.  I am not committed to posting something every day.  Perhaps a cook has the stamina to cook something yummy every day.  There is always the satisfaction of someone tasting the beef, even if it is only the cook herself.  A meal cooked and eaten.  However, with a poem, like Julie’s burnt stew, I might want to start over.  Throw out everything except the basic ingredients—the subject and knowledge of the craft.  I might not want my raw poems consumed.  

I am a loner.  No supportive husband in the background waiting to dine.  Aha!  Perhaps that should be my motivation.  My subject is love.  An alternative to online dating.  Love poems—to anyone, to everyone.  One a day.  Maybe I should rev it up.  Two or three a day.  What would it take to find the lover who will hunker patiently, waiting to consume—my words?

Here’s the challenge.  Make love noble, global.  Make love make a difference.  Make love a poem.   Make it green—or red, or purple.  Let love save us.  The day after 9/11 I visited my local dry cleaner.  I said to the owner, kissing him with words, I said there is nothing left now but love, nothing but love.  I embrace that thought questioning why there are times the world comes together (times of illness, of disaster, of death)—and love rules; and there are times love is so absent I must cover my ears because the noise of the lack of love is so painful, so sad, so not understandable.

I believe in love.  I believe it like I believe in miracles.  Love is a miracle.  Here is a love poem for today, first draft, no revision.  But, I don’t promise another one tomorrow.

Summer has sent chills

down

my

back I want water

crave fluidity

listen for sound like wind

wandering through trees, yet

wet             weekends not enough

to escape from sheet rock and nails

I want sun sizzling, crackling like wounded

cement, my view of night.  Darkness

awakens me, memory of seasons

I could afford to be happy.

Sherry Quan Lee

August 24, 2009