Welcome to the Thunderdome & The Last Stanza

Two poets enter.  One poet leaves.

 

* * *

 

It's another rainy day here in the wet Northwest.  Though I'm not complaining, I was hoping for rain so I don't feel guilty for staying inside and writing.  I'm off to the office in a bit--today, it's the library.  I am writing so much more by leaving the house.  Even if I'm alone at home, I write more diligently, in a more focused way somewhere else.  Maybe because I get hungry or the chairs are too hard.  Maybe something wants to leave and return home and to do so, I must have written.  So I write.

I'm starting some longer projects, but mostly to be honest, right now my head is in the clouds.  We just received word that everyone in our class finished their thesis on time and we will all be graduating.  I can't believe it.  I was planning to return for my MFA in 1998 or 1999, but instead my body worked on something else that year--a baby.  I cannot tell you how thankful I am for low-residency programs.  It would have been incredibly difficult to have completed my MFA in a traditional program on campus.  Honestly, for us, we would have had to sell our blue house by the sea and move back to the city.  Yes, it could have been done, but with a lot disturbances to regular life and the disheveling of a family.

 

So, here I am.  I feel as if right now I'm just sort of standing a field and around me are unlimited directions.  I've always said that all of my best decisions have been made by listening to my heart--I know that sounds precious, but it's true.  And maybe heart isn't the right word, maybe it's instinct, or desire, or that feeling I get inside when I know something is right. 

 

My worst decisions have all been made with my head--they've been thought out and planned (sometimes well-planned).  Every decision that has gone wrong was a decision I made because I *thought* it was the right thing to do.  I've come to realize my best decisions are made by a more visceral process--if something *feels* right.  I know, it sounds so new-agey, so touchy-feeling, you'd think that after I make my decision I'm going to sit down on my yoga mat with some green tea and light candles.  

 

So where will I walk to from the center of this open field?  I'm not sure.

 

Someone asked if I wanted to teach and my response was -- only at a low-residency program.  My goal is to make my life as a writer with as many subtitles as needed--poet, freelance journalist, novelist, you name it.  

 

Why is all this coming up now?  Well, I just received an email from my college with all the details on when to be at graduation, where to go, *you will not walk without a cap and gown* and so on.  And it gave me that nervous feeling, that omg, I'm done, I did this.  It's really truly over (officially in August after my last residency), but yes, I'm graduating.  Holy poetry, Batman.  We've reached the last stanza.