Often it’s been said that there is no such thing as writer’s block. I tend to agree. However, personally, I have “writer’s hesitation.” [I know, the period inside the quotation looks weird, but I’ve been told by experts that’s the way it is.] I hesitate for various reasons, but most recently, if I want to be truthful, because I am lazy (not all the time, and not about everything).
I want to write a poem. It’s been awhile since I wrote a poem. Specifically, maybe a year or five or eight. I don’t count years or poems, it’s just that I’ve been writing prose. But the poem I want to write is someplace outside of myself.
The poem is gurgling, wants to be set free; but, I won’t release it. Freeing it would take time and effort. What is beneath the surface? Something so big I can’t even name it. Something larger than myself. And that’s the point. I’m 68 years old. For the past thirty something years I’ve been writing about me (at least recently I’ve managed to write about me in terms of not only intersectionality, but also in connection to local and national historical events), but I want to move beyond myself, discover more than my own humanity.
The enormity of knowing what to write about has me cowering in a corner (okay, on the couch watching Netflix). It takes effort to focus. It takes relationships. It takes community. It takes the opposite of lazy.
Solution: I am going to take a class. A writing class. My boss is teaching the class. Some of my students may be in the class. I will be intimidated, maybe, initially; but, I will knock “lazy” on her butt and wave goodbye to “hesitation.” I will write a poem, or two, maybe even three.
I may be the only 68 year old writer in the class, no denying it; but, I’ve always believed in life-long learning-I’ve just been too “lazy” to practice it.
Sherry Lee
May 1, 2015
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Thanks Sherry for the reminder we can keep learning, life long learning.