Yesterday evening gave me a chance to take part in a writing workshop that I had watched from afar for several months due to the urging of another writer and friend. When I am deep into working on a project, I find Newton’s First Law affects a terrible toll on me, and the likelihood that I will engage with any new practice—even if it is only once a month—is dreadfully close to zero. Still, when the right force is applied, you can get a reaction out of me. Although I wish I had performed better in this opportunity to produce a few good works for myself, I did understand something deeper about myself through the process, which is a lesson that I hope writing continues to teach me no matter how old I get. Follow me through a short tale of introspection, intestinal discomfort, and intentional exploration.
The setting for this lovely night was the top floor of our local brewery, whose windows command a great view over much of my hometown. While here you still feel close enough to the people and places that you could take part in their business, if you wished, but you are removed just enough that you can conduct deep discussions with peers or focus on a task if you really wish to do so. Around a dozen of us gathered upstairs around ancient tropical plants and wood that seems to glow no matter what hour of the day we were there. Although I had been in this space for several other reasons, I had never considered it as a place to write until I gathered with several other writers there. Everything about this arrangement felt beautiful in the moment, so I was sure I was going to produce at least two or three lines of glorious poetry that would warm my heart with their authenticity and clarity.
Alas, such a fragile ideal was not meant to be.
I did apply myself to our prompts as well as I could manage, but I realized halfway through the first hour of exercises that I had slipped into a bad habit of mine that I sometimes engage in when I find myself in unfamiliar territory: erring onto the side of the humorous whenever we were exploring our capabilities and responses to poets. For example, when everyone else in the room explored their connections to intimate places from their past and present, I decided to instead write about the beautiful room we were in and how I found myself on a bench that squeaked every time I moved or breathed, realizing eventually that the most unsettling aspect of that experience was that these protestations were coming from within me, from my own soul. I won’t say that I still found the poem moving to myself, but couched among the many other works I heard, I seemed to be throwing away what I could really produce in favor of trying to get a laugh. It did not help that what I had eaten for dinner with my writer friend before the workshop decided it wanted to battle the other contents of my stomach for the next hour and a half, but the more I thought of why I tried to be funny, I noticed something else about myself in the process.
I don’t envision myself to be too funny in most places, but I enjoy the change in others that I see when a good laugh ripples through them. This effect has convinced me over the years to divert attention away from myself with humor for a variety of reasons, mostly ones where I was unsure about my knowledge of a topic or how I was presenting that information to someone. I figured that there must be a source for these feelings, even when I know my content or know I am prepared to give a great performance. Why did I defer to humor last night when I knew I had words I wanted to share? My answer, oddly enough, came from an unexpected place: my plants.
Like many other houseplant enthusiasts right now, I am trying to reacclimatize some of the plants I took inside during the late fall and winter months to their full strength of being outside. As I have moved a few pots in and out, in and out, again and again, I have noticed a dwarf peach tree that I had transplanted next to my porch has not yet flowered. I worried about this plant for the last few weeks as everything else around the yard started to bloom and green as temperatures warmed up. I knew it might be stunned by the move and the exceedingly cold weather we had for several weeks, but I hoped it would blossom in its own time.
When I came to this small acceptance, I realized that I was trying to force this tree to bloom. I don’t think I wanted to control it, per se, but I was subjugating its own needs and desires beneath my own wish to see it blossom in front of me. My worry resulted from the difference in what I wanted and what I thought the tree wanted, and that I thought those two wishes were the same; when they did not align and did not happen, some of those negative feelings surfaced. Instead of dealing with those emotions and how they kept me from moving forward, I found an escape through wit and humor surrounding the situation. In the place of contributing anything meaningful to my understanding of why this dwarf peach tree was not awakening, I likened it to myself and my own struggles to escape winter’s thrall.
The same thing happened last night at the writing workshop.
Instead of using the writing we were doing there to process my own writing difficulties, I shared humorous responses that I knew would elicit responses from the other writers there. My mind did go in directions away from the prompt that could have led to beautiful pieces or at the very least beautiful ideas that I could have explored in more depth elsewhere, but I was not yet ready to talk about my problems via writing or any other means until I had made the discovery that I relate to you now. The struggle was a necessary part of the journey to attain this understanding, and it is a lesson I try to impart to my students whenever I can do so to prepare them for how hard this writing work proves to be sometimes. Just because it is difficult work doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our best every time, even if it makes me writhe in my seat instead of attentively work on my piece of writing. I hope that I have learned that lesson and can demonstrate that learning the next time I meet with this group next month.
After going outside to take a picture of the peach tree in question, I did notice that a single small bloom and a handful of leaves had sprouted on a lower branch sometime during the day today. It was only after relaxing my worry and accepting the lesson I had learned about my own deflections with humor that I knew that I could not force this tree or force any of my other creations to follow the path that I thought they should take. They will bloom when they are meant to bloom. I will continue to write my poems and work on my manuscripts until I know they are ready for the views of others, and then I will be prepared for their readiness in the world by knowing that they are as great as they can be at that time. I hope you will look at your own life and work and feel the same way.
Keep writing!
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