Friday the 13th with 3rd Graders!

Today, I spoke to a group of 78 third graders at Maxwell Elementary School in Lexington, KY. I was a bit nervous as it has been years since I've been in front of a classroom. Not since the days of working with the wonderful Community Word Project and teaching in the Bronx, had I spent so much time with an audience of young ones. And we had a blast. My dear friend who invited me wanted me to read some of my own work, but because much of my work is geared towards adults, I decided to write a poem specifically for these students. It's a children's poem exploring what it's like to become a poet. It's been a long time since I wrote anything for children, but I found great joy in the process. Here it is below. Thank you to the 3rd Graders of Maxwell and their wonderful teachers for an inspirational day of words and warm place to escape the snow. 

The Invitation

For Maxwell 3^rd Graders

When I was a big-mouthed kid

with so much of my life left to go,

there were so many things I wanted

to feel, to see, to know.

I wondered about the birds I saw

crisscrossing the endless sky.

I wondered how it would feel someday

to open my feather-less self and fly.

I thought about the bully bee

with its painful, throbbing sting.

I wondered if I could ever make

such a small and powerful thing.

I thought about the darkness

and the giant moon in the trees,

how sweet that light would feel

glistening on my own leaves.

I wanted to be incredible,

create rhythm (and sometimes rhymes).

I wondered what my dreams

would look like, broken into lines.

What I wanted was to say something,

but I didn’t know where to start,

so I walked out in to an empty field

and tried to quiet my too-loud heart.

And when I listened long enough,

there came a rumbling of distant words.

They were coming out of nowhere,

like a booming flock of wayward birds.

Oh how I was thunderstruck!

Oh how I welcomed the unknown!

I knew then, that all I wanted

was to make my life a poem.

Beginning Againing

After the rush and buzz of the holidays (an eleven day road trip with puppy in tow), I came back to Kentucky with a new sense of my weird self. Not the sense of self that says, “I’ve got this figured out,” but rather the one that says, “Oh, right, I have no idea what I’m doing.” I learned a lot about how I want to live my life, what I want out of it, who I want to spend it with, what my next journeys will entail, and so forth. In the fall of 2010, I quit my job, and despite having fallen in love with someone, moved home to the Valley of the Moon where I tried desperately to write a novel. Now, it’s 2012. I live in Kentucky with my man. I have finished the fifth draft of my first of a novel. We have a dog, and we go for walks, and write, and drink bourbon, and wine, and tea. I freelance copywrite from my home office, which keeps me in touch with New York and the advertising world, and all in all, I am, (say it, or as Elizabeth Bishop said…(Write it!), happy.

And yet still there are days when I am not. When I am full of fear and self-loathing. Full of envy, greed, or hurt. The days where the beast inside of you rails against your softer water-sack on the soul and screams that you are doing it all wrong, making a mess of things, carpooling one too many bad ideas to and from the office of regrets. It’s fascinating to me.  Still, as I enter 2012 with a still-not-done-probably-80% there-book-I-never-thought-I-would-write, and a life I never thought I would have, despite my occasional blues and mean streaks, I am pressing onward with some absurd belief that everything’s going to be alright. In the meantime, these are my resolutions that I will make here to keep me sane and grounded. (Some of these, I already do, and this simply serves as a way of recommitting to them.)

1. Walk in the “great outdoors,” every day, even in the snow, (even with the blues).
2. Meditate every day for at least 10 minutes.
3. Write every day. No matter what it is. And emails (unless they are long love letters, or epic personal stories, or writings on the craft) don’t count.
4. Practice yoga, Pilates (it still bugs me that I have to capitalize that), or at the very least, some stretching every day. (I sit at my desk and write all, people who do that also need to work out a lot.)
5. Connect with my friends more (call or video chat more). Make phone dates and stick to them. These people are my lifelines. They have always been my lifelines. Don’t forget it.
6. See my family more often. Travel, video chat, call, write, send gifts, to the people that made me and the people that helped me be a better person all along the way.
7. Be as honest with myself as possible, while still dreaming extraordinarily big. (Fly? I can do that. Watch me.)
8. Stop beating myself up so terribly when I make a mistake. (I hate failure, I keep forgetting that it makes me better. I hate you when you tell me I fail. But trust me, I hate myself more. This cycle must end.)
9. Save more money. (I don’t need everything I see. Except for that, right there, just this once.)
10. Use my time more wisely. (TV is not wise. Unless it is. Then it’s awesome.)
11. Answer the phone when it rings, unless I am already with someone. (I’m never going to do this, but I’m putting it here to make my phone feel better.)
12.  Read more. (This includes the lovely stack of New Yorkers that have piled up like intellectual bills in our living room.)
13. Listen more closely to people, hear what they need. Be a better friend because I’ve listened, not because I’ve said something.
14. Tell him all the time how happy he makes me. Make sure he knows how impossible this good love can seem sometimes, and how grateful I am that he is my incomparable partner in crime.
15. Play guitar. Learn some new songs.
16. Write a new story (whatever this means).
17. Finish book of poems number four. (It’s on its way.)
18. Explore, appreciate, and connect to the town where I am living like I’m a happy tourist. Whatever town that is.
19. See more live music. Nothing compares to the elation of my ears.
20. Practice gratitude, and acceptance, and joy. (Ah, you know…easy.)
21. Take care of myself like I would a friend: Eat well, drink well, comfort and calm myself.
22. Teach our dog some new tricks. And by new, I mean, some. (I know Mr. Cesar Millan. It’s me, not the dog.)
23. Give more. Volunteer more. Do things for others.
24. Never underestimate the power of the art we do.
25. Begin again. And again. And again.