NaPoWriMo

OK, so I have a confession… part of why I FINALLY started writing this blog is because I have my own personal sort of competition going. It’s all in my head though. I actually set up my profile and came up with the name for the blog quite a while ago, but just never began any posts. I have lots of excuses: I have a baby now, I work full time, I also keep a journal, if I ever HAVE any free time I’d also love to spend it knitting… so blogging isn’t always the first thing on my to-do list. However someone (who shall remain nameless) recently began blogging, I started reading it, and it sort of spurred me on to begin mine, as well. Competition can be healthy, and I hope that’s the way this is going… but I thought - and I hope this doesn’t sound too egotistical – I’m a better writer [than that person], why am I not doing it? Yeah yeah – “they” always say “writers write”, and I thought to myself, well this other person says they want to be a writer, so they’re writing, but I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a writer, have written since I was a kid, and yet I’m really not writing so much these days. So, I started. Again. And found a bunch of my older poems and writing samples. And forgot how much I had wanted to take that more seriously. I re-read much of what I’d previously written, and found myself getting excited about it again, and reconnecting with things I’d written, and then also felt a tad bit guilty about feeling like I was “better” at writing than this other person. But it’s still true – what got me off my duff and paying attention to writing again was this competition I was feeling with someone else, that I had what I felt was more a way with words than them. Anyone who is literate can write, and it’s always that putting one foot in front of the other to make yourself a better writer, in many ways, to improve grammatically, and in form, structure, etc. But it’s the substance and how you convey that to others – some people just have a gift. I’m not saying I’m gifted that way, no… there are many writers out there who just take my breath away or make me cry, at how beautifully they string words together, and artfully, movingly tell a story. I aspire to that. And I don’t want to come at it from a place of ego, or feeling like I’m better than someone else at it, but to simply try to create lyrical, beautiful words that move people.

So all this was toward the end of April: I read a poem this other person wrote, and it sparked me to find my files with my poetry, and I re-read and started to get inspired, and lo and behold, it was April 29th and I realized I’d basically missed NaPoWriMo – April was National Poetry Month! Damn! Why couldn’t this all have come about say a month or so earlier, so I could have joined the NaPoWriMo challenge, and flexed my writing muscle to come up with 30 new poems? Well, better late than never… I suppose I could still do that… on my own. But much like my knitting, I feel like I have some “projects” I still need to finish before I begin new ones, so I think I’ll start by posting some of my older poems first. Some of them in particular help to tell my story, and would catch up this blog on my background, before I plunge into new territory with my writing. So I’ll post an older poem here and there, and give you a little insight into how each came about, and then I’ll feel like I can start fresh!

I recently attended B’s grandma’s funeral, and it brought back memories of attending my great-aunt’s funeral, while I was going through my divorce. There are other poems that are maybe more pertinent to telling my story here, but I thought this one was a little sweet, and searching for it led to me finding several others, too, so I may as well begin with this one.

Taste the Sugar
(4/18/07)

She was a Scorpio, like me. My great aunt,
pronounced "Inga", even though it was Inger,
spelled. Her full name Ruth Inger Jensen,
though my Danish great-grandparents couldn't
even pronounce Ruth, it was rather like "Root"
when they said it. Born in San Francisco, like my
Grandma Elsie. Had four children: Marvin, Harlan,
Tommy, and Gail. Harlan named after her husband,
who was shot once while driving a Metro bus.
The two Harlans gone now for I don't know how
many years. Both of them buried, though she was
cremated, wishing her ashes to be scattered
in the mountains. I really knew none of them well,
having distanced myself from my family for most
of my life. That's what happens when dysfunction
drives you to distrust intimacy, even in the simplest
form of supposed unconditional love family can represent.
I showed up, though how halfheartedly, I now wonder...
Sometimes at my Aunt Pat's former job at the wine shop,
in the arcade at Frederick & Nelson. I was there in
Bowie, Maryland, after my Uncle Dale died, to visit
and pay my respects to my Aunt Ellen, though I have no
real idea of what it must have been like for her to lose
her husband, and my Aunt Greta to lose her two husbands.
I kept the costume jewelry necklace and green-faced
compact, leftover trinkets from days of dress-up at
Aunt Ellen's. I keep the memory of my Grandma Elsie
and my Aunt Inger spoiling me and my sister with an entire
day of shopping, and expensive dresses, like we'd never
experienced before, or probably since. I took what
benefited me, I suppose, and hid from the rest.
Duty, sisterhood, family - how much do we truly give?
My mom was eloquent at the memorial, smiling and keeping
her composure for the most part, while I was surprisingly
beyond tearful. Remembering, Aunt Inger took in all of us
as her own, never excluding anyone, not even my
almost ex-husband, about whom she always remarked
"so handsome." I love her for that, and for so much more.
One common memory, so simple, perhaps the sweetest:
"You know the best way to taste the sugar? You have
to lick your finger first - that way it sticks better."