What you are about to read is the first in a trilogy
of blogposts, in which I am allowing myself the freedom to understand my previous
take(s) better. May it increase your compassion for and interest in your own
mis-takes. Here goes.
A sudden heap of demands descended upon me after a two-year lull of sorts and I guess I was, at the time, too contented (blasé?) or too busy, to notice what was happening.
The lull occurred after my husband (who was a poet) died in July 2017. I’d stood by him without pause in his last months, when his health plummeted dramatically, but he also made dramatic comebacks, several times. When it was all over, I began to assemble poems I’d written in his bodily presence, as well as ones that were blossoming in his purely spiritual presence. In the space of two years, I published two solo collections, one fat and one slim, entitled Greater Matter and Sweet Nothings, which were launched in October 2019 and February 2020 respectively.
The creation, publication and marketing of these books signalled the beginning of my independence as a poet ‘in my own right’, and I was working hard on nurturing a small readership, as well as keeping up with the daily discipline of writing and self-editing, ever on the lookout for ways of improving my craft. Although I was still very much grieving, I felt deeply fulfilled by having finally learned to hearken my inner voice.
As anyone who has lived a little knows, whenever anything “finally” falls into place, it is a certain marker that one thing has ended and something else is beginning.
The momentum of my life upped significantly when I fell in love with a charming person, who was intrigued by the fact that I was a poet – a phenomenon he had not encountered before. His educational background at a technical school had been largely untouched by poetry, and famous titles from the literary canon had never been part of the curriculum. He’d made a life for himself as a businessman, who, amongst other ventures, had owned bookstores; he was well-read in crime thrillers and latched now, with happy fervour, onto my late husband’s extensive Zane Grey collection; journeyed from there through non-fiction and survival stories into, at this point in time, philosophical classics, such as Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. Love naturally pulled him closer to learning why poetry is special; he’s written some of his own poems and has, over the years, occasionally been a sounding-board for mine.
As a poet, my prime interest is, of course, not poetry, but life itself. Intensely romantic and idealistic as I am by nature, as far as I was concerned my life was, here and now, presenting me with the most remarkable and undreamed-of opportunity! This man, no doubt, would sell my poetry books and turn us into a formidable team, with me creating and him promoting beautifully shaped words to reach and heal the hearts of all humanity. (Off-stage, whispering: mis-take.)
Well, to give him due credit – he did sell six copies of Sweet Nothings, the first nogal on the day we collected it from the printers – AND it was Valentine’s Day! I couldn’t believe it! We were on a roll! (mis-take)
However, to my naïve surprise, Jay (not his real name) had limited patience with things that are difficult to sell and, of all the things there are in the world that people do NOT readily put their hands into their wallets for, poetry wins first prize. To put it more succinctly, when it comes to saleability, poetry and ice cream are poles apart.
Well, Jay’s realism about marketing my poetry personally was a bit of a damper on my high hopes, but I still had my eye on life itself. He had (and still has) a shop in Hogsback, where he generously (at no profit to himself) gave shelf space to the poetry volumes I wanted to sell – my own, those by my late husband, as well as books by the Ecca Poets. This set-up has worked, and is still working; the books sell slowly, as is to be expected. I love to imagine the poems flowing out like starlight, reaching people long after they are first published. For THAT is their power. Unlike ice creams, poems do not melt.
BUT. BUT. BUT.
Here I was, a novice poet still wet behind the ears, choosing
to be with a person who could not be blamed for having no inkling of what it
meant to BE a poet. I would have to teach him what that is and what it means to
live with one. Did I turn out to be a bad teacher, phew! If one can excel at
failure, then I am truly excellent. For, clearly, as it turned out: I did not
know myself what it meant; certainly I did not know how to manage it in balance
with nurturing a new love relationship. So, being a good woman (not a mistake),
what I did try to do was choose to serve my love for Jay. I put that love
higher than my love for bringing poems into the world. It felt like an ethical
choice – that is to say, not a choice at all. Of course a beautiful, living
human being has more value than words strung together! (Not a mistake.)
However, looking at it now, I guess that was the story I told myself – in order to justify the rather unbalanced belief system I clung to, which was: my relationship with a beloved other is more important than the relationship with my independent self.
AT THE SAME TIME.
My parents were growing increasingly dependent and, one
month into hard lockdown, my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I REALISED
then (mis-take). Life is asking me
NOT to be a poet (huh?), for that, I
told myself, is selfish, irrelevant, economically unviable and socially
irresponsible (???). Besides, there
are millions of poets out there, with a few hundred of them bloody excellent,
so the world definitely does NOT need to read anything I write. FINALLY I was
going to be a PROPER PERSON, an ORDINARY person, just like everybody else, who PUTS
SERVING REAL PEOPLE BEFORE WRITING POEMS.
It’s sad, or maybe it’s actually, ultimately, funny, but my poetry seemed to me to be nothing but solipsistic (mis-take); nature- but not people-centred; pampering nothing but my own soul and helping nobody (mis-take!). I ask, on my knees, forgiveness – for all this mis-taken, negative self-talk – from my loyal fans and readers. You guys truly helped me, privately, lovingly, patiently, with steady encouragement, to keep my waning little flame alight despite myself, during these years of my own stupidity descending, mis-take by mis-take, onto and spreading out its darkness within me.
Truth was, I felt I owed society something for having published two solo volumes in the blissful solitude of a paradisiacal house and garden. And here, before my very eyes, in front of my own door, so to speak - where one is, for good reason, told to sweep first and foremost - were my parents, one struggling with her own body (my mother is paralysed in a wheelchair), the other with his mind (Alzheimer’s is an unnerving disease for the person suffering from it). As for Jay, he was soul-searching, writing his own book, trying to understand his nicotine addiction. The last thing any of them needed, so it seemed to me, was my poetry, let alone the complications involved in creating it. I confess I imposed it – very gently – upon them, at times (if for no other reason than to give myself breathing room). I can testify that they were never the worse off. My mother’s and Jay’s responses were virtually always sweetly affirming. But, too often, their interest was painfully temporary. I see now, with a grimace of resignation, that I was looking to them to give my poetry the attention I wasn’t giving it!
As for the rest of the world – clearly it agreed with my negativity, so it appeared to me at the time. Covid and lockdown, government corruption, the continued desacralisation of nature, poverty, hunger and, later, war screamed at me: DO YOU FINALLY SEE HOW IRRELEVANT YOUR POEMS ARE??? I suppose, dear reader, that you might relate to some of this? When harmful self-talk blots all your blessings and sadistically breaks all your motivation?
For, despite this illness in my soul, my guardian angel, and my God, called me – often – and gave me motivation and encouragement. The extraordinary blessings in my life during that out-of-synch period put ever more real conflict inside me, making it impossible to COUNT those blessings. I was invited to read alongside other poets, musicians and dancers, at the African Women Writers’ Symposium in 2021; I painted poems onto a public wall, working alongside formidable artists in Knysna in 2022; I publicly read a well-received poetic tribute to those artists at the launch of that wall; I collaborated in an amazing poem-dance at an animal charity art exhibition. I organised two successful poetry readings in the privacy of my home; AVBOB accepted three of my poems for their poetry library, and also, very kindly, did a punt for me; I had poems and even art published in respected US literary magazines; I walked and wrote daily (for me, those two activities belong together) and continued, albeit erratically, to trial modest poems on my precious private readers – all the time at war with myself, feeling completely fake. Why? Because: I was failing properly to acknowledge these achievements, they were strange, if exhilarating, puzzles, more than anything else, to my confused mind. (No-take) I cannot emphasise enough that the word “count” is all-important in the idiom, “count your blessings”. Alone to create the links now to all those precious moments has been more than humbling.
At the time, all the puzzledness and confusion, by the way, was taking place OFFLINE. Online I continued to show a more ‘professional’ face, as best I could, hiding the grimy truths of my soul and – even though I did try to be honest and published some posts on this blog about bitterness and sadness – the fact was that I felt utterly out of control. The best I could do was to announce that I was taking ‘a Sabbatical’.
During that ‘Sabbatical’, I burnt myself out in the service of loving my needy loved ones.
Organising my parents’ household from afar; being
there for them emotionally on a daily basis; driving the long journey to visit
them once a month; being there emotionally as well as in very practical ways
for Jay – all of this, thank the Lord, I could do and did. (Not a mis-take.)
But, prioritising this service, and simultaneously trying to make THEIR PRIORITIES mine, giving insufficient time, attention and authority to my craft, my readers, my finances, was a mis-take. I felt unseen, unacknowledged: I had been caught in the web of a plight endured by far too many women and men, who attend to their loves at the cost of paying attention to their independence, inner balance, fulfilment and own resources.
My vicious temper, which had disappeared with the appearance of my poetry publications, returned.
My feelings of serenity and fulfilment, which had
blessed me when I was centred in my independent creativity, evaporated.
My experience of being at one with myself gave way to
feeling more and more torn.
Stress will always show the places in you that require
further attention.
Yes, I was still feeding morsels to my Facebook Page
and social media platforms, was still showing up here and there, as I could. An
online persona really gives one the option of faking it – not necessarily a bad
thing, I suppose, as you can give faking it your all until you actually do make
it. I couldn’t bear to come out publicly with the conflicts on my heart and the
severe loss of a sense of control I suffered privately, because, on the one
hand, the world seemed to be ending in disease, lies and violence, how could I
possibly, in good conscience, add to the bad news? On the other hand, I also
did not know in the least how to write about my stuff WITHOUT mentioning all the
dearly beloved non-poets I was so focused on – so, on top of everything I was
in a permanent spin about the ethics of what poetry and writing were asking of
me. Posts on this blog, in which I came out with some of the facts of my life,
were a source of inner pain and turmoil.
Closer to home, my duties towards the Ecca group kept me strung into those beautiful people, who had once been my fellows; friends, who still saw me as one of their own.
I tried as best I could to conceal it, but I grew
increasingly unsure of myself. I actually became afraid of speaking publicly, especially,
for some reason, of being seen on the zoom poetry readings at Off The Wall and
The Red Wheelbarrow (where I was even featured!) all too often I’d want to say something and then
just sit, with a horrible hardness locking my throat. I can’t believe it
myself, and I won’t blame you if you don’t, but I actually cringed with the sense
of shameful inferiority I felt in the presence of other poets.
I began to doubt the power of love itself, I felt abysmally
disappointed in myself and convinced that I did not love enough.
As time went by, however, I gradually began to understand that – like so many PROPER PEOPLE, like so many ORDINARY PEOPLE, who put THE PRIORITIES OF THOSE THEY LOVE BEFORE THEIR OWN PRIORITIES I was living a life of “quiet desperation”.
Thankfully, by the grace of God, I would be given opportunity to course-correct. Seeing your MIS-TAKE is always an opportunity for a RE-TAKE.
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| Two of the very good reasons I am infinitely grateful to have made my mis- take: and why I have not a single regret! Photo: Brian Bartlett |
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