The Garden Font
Sunday, August 31, 2008 
When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits and feel just as pleased."I found the above quote over at Kyran Pittman's place, and it struck me that I would be up to my disastrously over-plucked eyebrows* in biscuits if I took Anne Morrow Lindbergh's advice.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
It has been difficult to get find my creative mojo over the last couple of months. Of course, this coincides with my having to take a much needed step back from some of my responsibilities and an increase in my psych medication, but, to be honest? I do not usually lose the ability to write things down as often and as much as I want, no matter how many tons of ass I feel like or how much I might suddenly harbour the suspicion that They are using the wiring in our apartment building as a surveillance device in connection with everything we own with an electrical plug. Shhh, the toaster might be listening.**
The poetry always leaves me first when my creativity takes a downturn. I have managed to write a whopping three whole poems since January. At first, I was not all that concerned, because the poetry comes and goes like my dreams. For weeks at a time, I will be slammed with such vivid dreams that i am left tired, and then I won't remember another dream for the next month. It is only over the last four weeks that I have become concerned. I will sit down in the morning with the intent to write a simple weblog post, and the next thing I know it is mid-afternoon, and I have little idea what it is I have been doing over the previous four or five hours aside from staring at the walls. And then I have a nap, because not thinking is apparently incredibly taxing.
This afternoon, I went out into my mother-in-law's garden with a camera with the hope that shooting some pictures might loosen up my creative numbness, and it did work to a certain extent. I have a habit, when I am alone while taking photographs, of talking to myself under my breath. I quietly describe the flowers, the quality of old wood, the rough edges of poured concrete, and all the things at which I point my camera become lines of unwritten poems that only I can hear.
Those lines are all gone now. They drifted off before I could take the time to write them down, but I at least have some photographs. It has been a long time since I let my eyes wander over things and places in the tactile way that they do when I am feeling my environment out for shape and content within a frame. It felt good, a little bit like home.
* In the spring, I ended up in the terrible cycle in which I would try to make one eyebrow match the other, only I would always end up accidentally yanking out one or two hairs that would throw them out of the symmetry I had so nearly achieved. I ended up with these thin eyebrows that waggled at me mockingly through most of the summer until they grew in. This morning, I screwed them up again.
** I don't often have the idea that the electrical wiring is really some sort of hegemonic They's spy system. It is merely a holdover in my brain's wiring from the insanity of my fifteenth year. I no longer believe in any real and deep way that the tea kettle is possibly a parabolic microphone.
Reader Comments (18)
This whole post read like a poem, photos included. That eggshell in the nest photo is all sorts of awesomeness; and what I love most about it is the (intended or not) inherent symbolism. We all have our cracks, but even so are still whole.
Sending you love & light...
Jules
http://bigpikchur.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">House of Jules
beautiful post... :) as always. that emotional home is a wonderful place.
i had a little chuckle when I saw the google ad on the side though. so i took a screen capture in case you didn't get to see it. :P
http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=schmutzieug5.jpg
Just jumping in to say I know what it's like too feel as though you've lost your mojo. I've been looking for mine for the past year-and-a-half.
Even a post about your lost mojo is immensely worth reading.
This post is descriptive and beautiful. You have NOT lost your mojo from what I can tell.
Also, I get the "spy thing". Sometimes when I'm in my car talking to myself (I talk to myself a lot) I wonder who might be listening. Then I wonder if I'm in some coma or something and THINK I'm driving down the road and people are hearing me say the things I say.
Also, I think my house might be haunted because every time I lay down to go to sleep the baby wakes up. I think the ghost is waking her up so I can't sleep.
Maybe I should up my meds. ;-)
I don't mean to make light of your suffering, but that eyebrow story is fucking awesome.
There's your novel.
I think we're collectively interested in craziness because we're all tired of being-this-way.
And even though it probably hurts like hell, this post serves as a little sign pointing toward a new way to be.
This line: " ... I let my eyes wander over things and places in the tactile way that they do when I am feeling my environment out for shape and content within a frame."
Sheer poetry! And the photo of the egg shell? More poetry! A little media-switching never hurts. The poetry is still there, maybe just not in verse.
boy am i gonna regret writing this, but I was once, secretly scared of an old pitted, stainless steel cooking pot. Talk about paranoid. I needed meds!
and your eyebrows? the trick is to pencil them in FIRST, then pluck anything outside of the lines. tadah
Personally, I think irregular eyebrows add a charming insuciance to the tinfoil hat.
Thoughtful and beautiful.
I'm not fond of that quote of Anne's at all. Maybe it doesn't ring true to me. Or maybe because my problem is I just EAT biscuits and then still feel like crap for not eating. Anne makes me feel like a lousy housewife/creative person/baker.
creative blocks suck! Monkey thingies! I just found a lovely little website that makes for a fun and quick creative exercise.
http://oneword.com
you have 60 seconds to view a single word and write with or about it. Then you can read others. I found the variety of responses really interesting. You're not supposed to analyze it or stew, just write off the cuff.
that was lovely girl. lovely.
Beautiful pictures and words. I wonder if you moved a little passed the block today.
Oh and teapots are innocuous, it's microwaves you have to watch out for.
oh, what luck to find your blog. I loved the quote, and loved even more your words that follow. When I'm writing poetry, it comes in huge waves and then peters out for months. I get all antsy and depressed about it, and then, words eventually stack up enough in my brain that they flow back to the paper, where I want them to belong. I just adored "It felt good, a little bit like home." lovely turn of phrase. These days I just write about poop. literally. sigh.
Wow, that is a beautiful picture. It actually placed me at a loss for words.
and by picture I mean the egg shell
It was a lovely post, but everything you write is fantastic. Despite the posts beauty, I am worried about you, tinfoil hat and all. I love you sweetness.
xo
the poetry is coming through of its own accord, that much is plain. lovely.