Sore Must Be The Storm

A writing practice I enjoy—because it feels productive—is to leave the page to do a task. While I wash dishes, or shower, or sweep, I let the words bounce into each other and scrape away at each other. I sing the tune without the words. And then, after some scrubbing, the words come. I rub them into my skin during a shower. I hold them in my teeth during a run. I stir them into salty pasta water while I cook. 

But when my body is heavy and my mind is heavy—as it sometimes is—this practice is impossible. The writing is forced into the back of the mind so I can think about why I am heavy instead. The writing rolls itself into a ball and to a far away place where I can’t find it. Now the ball is not the writing at all but the thing I have forgotten to do. Or the task I have done incorrectly. Or the friend who has left me. I’m not tactful or interesting anymore. I am histrionic. I never wear the right thing. I am too loud at parties. 

It all stops. The apartment orchestra of chore and words and clean room and sentence and organized closet and paragraph—halts. 

***

Quite recently, the writing rolled up into this fury ball for nearly a month. For a writer, this is a shameful thing. My heart turned from heavy to bland. Unsalted water heart. Writing is hard to do when sad. It’s harder when angry. When writing is hard, reading is hard. When reading is hard, caring about other people is hard. When I try to read, the words bounce off the page and run away before I can put them in my brain. So I watch I Love Lucy or SNL and laugh at the tiny world even though I know that the world is so big. When this happens, I feel like a fool. Past friends and future friends and all the words they will ever say all run away from me. 

***

The truth: a great friend has rolled away with my words, and now I feel like this person was no great friend at all. If not for this friend, I could have read at least five more novels this year. If not for this friend, I could have spent more Friday nights alone with words. If not for this friend—who is not coming back—I would not be in this jumbled cycle of writing and not writing and reading and not reading. I would know a little less of cruelty. I would be at the stove, peacefully stirring pasta into a metaphor whirlpool.

***

To earn extra credit, a student sent me an Emily Dickinson poem. In her reflection, she wrote that she doesn’t like reading or writing but that, when she reads Dickinson, she appreciates how little things—like buzzes, birds, and the weather relate to big things—like hope, death, and life. She said Dickinson’s dashes make it feel like the poet doesn’t have time to finish her thought before—buzz—the next thing hits her. 

I read “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” and I felt words again. The bird perched inside me, and I cried. I cried because the friend is not coming back, and food doesn’t taste the same without the friend. Even so, Dickinson—with her flies and dashes and window watching—and my student—with her thoughtfulness and her determination—brought me hope with feathers.

***

A few sentences have uncoiled now, and soon the stories will show up. Stories are the friends who come back after a summer away at camp. Stories are the friends who return from abroad and remember to bring chocolates. Stories are the friends who pop over after work to share leftover birthday cake. Stories are the friends who knock at the door and wait when they know you are in bed and it will take you a while to get to the door.

And if you don’t answer for a while, they will send something to find you. A feathered bird. A diligent student. A dream. Some interesting words. A new friend—or two—

***

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers” (314)

Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.