The Lover

I am sitting in cluttered bedroom trying to organize my thoughts. Today I cleared the cobwebs from my head by cutting the grass and pulling weeds from the earth. I was debating whether poems are answers to questions, or an arrangement of sentiments and ideas. I was thinking about D.H. Lawrence writing his verses in his Italian home. I believe he would write poems naked in his garden. James Joyce would explore the countryside in search of Ulysses. Walt Whitman would write as an afterthought to making love. I think that writing serves a purpose on its own and sometimes when we write it is not in search of finding answers to a question, but maybe thinking of the important question that leads us to the writing path.

As I child I began to write even before I knew how to write. I wrote internal dialogues, while watching and observing people and nature. It didn't matter that I did not know how to write because my internal voice recorded these experiences.

I often find that even now as an adult, the interior dialogue doesn't always make it on paper. Sometimes it remains on the canvas of memory and that too is important but I am afraid that if I don't record it, one day I will not be able to retrieve and document it.

I have started again to write poetry. I keep a small black book with me at all times and it goes with me everywhere. It is essentially a part of me, and it is there for me to give a voice to my feelings and experiences. Writing is a part of me. For so long I struggled with writer's block and felt as thought I were hitting my head against a brick wall. Now I have reconnected to my writing life it feels as though I have reconnected with an old flame that was always there but I somehow became separated from him. And now that he has returned, the biggest love affair of my life has occured and he provides the inspiration for it.

A room for words

Writers need a place they can call their own to create. I struggled for years wondering what kind of a place this would be and I made a list.

room in a cottage
under the pergola
a shady place under a weeping willow tree
my kitchen table
my bedroom

I chose my bedroom. I have a turn-of-the-century cherrywood table and a matching chair that breathes a history of its own. My desk is covered in papers, books and pictures. I meant to use this breathtakingly beautiful desk to write on, instead my bed, has turned out to be this place. I sleep in this bed, love in this bed, and create in this bed. I sometimes pen entries in countless journals, or use my little white notebook computer to write poems or stories, over my heap of blankets.

It is peaceful in this room of tall windows, and garden beyond them. Right now the crickets are lulling me to sleep.