almost not yet

it is hard to put this feeling into words. but it is what i've been groping for wordlessly for a long time, so i'll take a stab at it.

tonight started like any other busy night. trying to tie up loose ends so i could actually get to the open mic. life always has detours. and if we habitually give up, we'll lose the scent.

one way i've kept the scent is rereading the things i've written when i've been very certain of what i'm doing (brief though those moments may be). then i am reminded. yes, this is what i am supposed to be doing with my life. pouring it out one syllable, one fragment at a time. i don't know why. i just know the feeling of peace and certainty that comes when i've done a bit of writing. (this blog has a purpose after all, you don't know how many times, even recently i've contemplated just deleting the whole damn thing).

that certainty. that peace is about all i've wanted these past few years. just a few moments. when i know what i'm doing and why. and i realize, only now, as the feeling is clean and pure within me, that i have known this feeling to a lesser degree through the years. i have known accomplishment. sometimes for something as small as a well cooked meal (that is an everest in my life. perhaps more a struggle of endurance and perseverence than anything else--cooking, that is).

but this feeling. this, damn i'm good certainty, that i CAN string words together in ways that are powerful and meaningful is a feeling i would pursue if i only got tiny glimpses and snippets of it along the way (which is what i've had 'til now).

my beloved was home late from work, i was tired, but feeling better than i've felt in a long while (since denver). i told my mom,

this was the first morning i wasn't drowning in my own sewage when i awoke (congestion, that is).

i like a good metaphor, and that is a good metaphor. gross, but gross is sometimes necessary.

my mom said,

you should watch that show, dirty jobs. that is what you just reminded me of.

ewww,

i said.

yeah,

she said.

that was a good metaphor, eh mom?

so see, it's been a day of little praise. little certainties along the way. and i was certain i had a poem to read tonight.

when my best friend called, i told her,

i'm reading copper fields tonight. i'm not sure what else. but i'm reading that one.

really?

she said.

yes.

how do you know what to read?

(i think that is how the conversation went)

sometimes i can feel it. other times the room tells me. what's been read before. but tonight i know i am supposed to read copper fields. i'll figure the rest out later.

(which is the great benefit to lugging all fifty pounds of my work to every reading. i can choose anything.)

so i get there, late. but i'm pleased, just to be going. i love open mics. the works are real. they are for an instant than no more. that is real art happening there. some of them suck, sure, but not all. by no means all. and those are the ones worth waiting for. worth listening to all the droning on and on (and there is droning on and on), to hear that one poem, poet, phrase that could change your life (rilke was evoked tonight and i felt him with me).

so i read my one poem. it went well. but then it always goes well. i'm in my element. doing what i was created to do.

a duck no more has doubt and questions about swimming than i do when i've a mic and listening ears. even without a mic (which is my preference), i've no trouble at all reading my stuff.

so, after i'm talking to some folks and one of the featured poets walks up to me and says,

i'm going to give you my information.

would you like my card?

no,

she said. (an odd answer, i thought. who wouldn't want my digits?)

i want you to send me ten poems. i put together readings in new york city.

and i left there and told the poets standing outside whom i had been talking to before i was approached.

you're on your way,

they said.

and i left singing and skipping (as much as i will do those kinds of things) with a hideous grin on my face and cranked up white stripes and sung my way home.

it's good to be me tonight. i'm on the cusp and i can feel it. who knows what will happen next.

huzzah!