I still kind of lost and unmotivated. Writing this daily entry has suddenly become difficult again. If I am not particularly thinking or feeling anything, I must be numb. Musn't I? My back has hurt for a few days, so I am not thoroughly without feeling.
I did some reading today. That Patti Smith book, Just Kids, is really quite a bit better than I expected. Thanks, Stuart and Lili!! I perused a rather strange writing book, Ensouling Language: On the Art of Nonfiction and The Writer's Life. The tone is a bit superior and dictatorial. Buhner is a bit of a know-it-all for a kind of nobody. He quotes Robert Bly A LOT. That should tell you something. (Grain of salt time?) But there are some good bits and I will keep nibbling at the tome until I have to return it to the library.
I leave you with two good quotes included in the book (and there seem to be a few).
A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses feelings through words. This may sound easy. It isn't. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel—but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling—not knowing or believing or thinking. Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people, but the moment you feel, you're nobody but yourself.
— e.e. cummings
Sounds accurate to me.
Beginnings are such delicate times.
— Frank Herbert
I feel as if I am beginning many things again:
- living in my apartment (getting all the way unpacked will be some kind of beginning, even if I have been here for two years);
- letting go of a lover (ready to begin new relationships);
- finding a new career (speaks for itself);
- getting to bed (beginning to get sleepy - it is after 1:31 a.m.).
