The Break Pt.1

10 minutes to read
It’s March 15, 2021 well it’s really the 16th. And I am back! Well I never really left this corner store, but you get what I mean.


I had to step away from mid-February because of the grad school rejection. After 9 days I thought I was ready but then I began bawling and knew it wasn’t time just yet. So I hung out in my own zone, giving attention to projects and tasks which were easy to do and didn’t cause me to feel miserable or push me into reliving misery i.e. writing about difficult topics like the social, sexual, physical abuse. This left me with two projects which were rather refreshing. Well, the truth is, I like to push myself so I did add a project about abuse – the chapbook. I mean, I am an abuse poet, what did you expect?


Was it difficult?


Depressingly?


Did I stop?


If slowing to halt is what you mean, yes.


I halted, and began rolling along slowly because the project means a lot to me and I need it out in the world, pristine and ripping people’s minds open and forcing them to think about what abuse is and means. Yes, this is the basis of all my poems. But repetition never hurt nobody! (*anyone) Well, it thoroughly annoys me, but obviously it’s necessary. And I made an asserted effort to edit this chapbook focusing on abuse. So during this break I was putting work in, in my own way.


I obliterated my old routine, began a new one which worked like magic for the first week increasing my productivity to ridiculous amounts.


During my break! I know!


The second week was not so good, but still okay. But this was still my break and I noticed something. If I do hard pushing smack dab in the early hours of the morning (3 to 6), hang around and do nothing all day my mind pushes out little answers to big problems and the next morning I feel brand new like I did nothing the day before because all my hard pushing was done almost 24 hours before. Bada-bing, bada-boom…if I could get myself to do the hard pushing during 3 to 6. But what goals had I on a break but to get over rejection? I thought about the rejection again, I cried, felt sorry for myself, no zest to be the odd rebel. The chapbook was given a break od its own. I cannot live through my own rejection and recreate traumas within myself while both feel equally strong so…I paused work on the chapbook as well.


The break continued.


I sat around watching a lot of television on an actual television and enjoyed watching the advertisements…I hadn’t realised this before. So I watched tv, read books, listened to podcasts, avoided more people than usual, enjoyed being in bed for the sake of being in bed which is where I do all my writing, editing, proofreading, socialising because my bed is my office space. I ate slowly without trying to hurry myself which is a staple of my existence because I eat ridiculously slowly. I’m the person who gets her food and begins eating before you, continues eating as you monologue so that I can catch up and still manage to finish minutes after you. So, I ate slowly, enjoying the pain of having to sit in one position for so long only lifting food to my mouth which always seemed to be full unless I was infront of the television…and I just shoved more food into my mouth without waiting for it to get empty. Eating is such an annoyance.


So I ate slowly, mused about life, and it was during one of these eatings that an old story poked its head out asking for my time. In the moment, I thought I would pick up the task after eating, but as I lifted my hand to find my mouth still occupied I decided to work out the kinks of that story. It had been atba standstill for years to the point that there were a few out of the story character development works from this period, and yet no progress in the actual story. Of course, I am the writer and henceforth should be blamed.


You had better not be thinking that!


Characters have minds of their own. They don’t want to die, they will thwart you!


So I was partially in cahoots with one of the…well, two of the characters and took to seeing their points of view while writing.


But while eating slowly with pens and papers near but not near enough I found my way into the light.


Honestly, my life and literary experiences since I last wrote anything new into the story have brought me to an awakening of sorts, one which has allowed me to be a backstabbing cahooter. But luckily, that’s great for the story because now that I have been able to dekink the kinks and to feel that process within myself but has a) given me such joy and b) informed me of the feeling of know one is headed in the right direction even when that feels like being slammed into a wall while simultaneously feeling the fear and force of being pushed towards the wall and simultaneously of falling to one’s imminent death from a cliff with jagged rocks waiting below and joyful peace is trembling in the center of this.


Yup, that’s what it feels like…


Yup. It loosened my jaw.


I understood what was happening because the story was the only thing on my find and as I thought of reversing my decision stagnant resignation resonate and that feeling of stillness I’d felt over the years was not going to be enough, but I also realised that as I went back and forth between stagnation and multi-directionality that I would be inflicting the pain of this feeling of knowing one is headed in the right direction which seemed ignorant of the order of feeling the outcome, fearing the outcome, and resisting the outcome. After subjecting myself that feeling having run to and from it and from stagnation I let go.


Don’t get me wrong.


I didn’t let go while eating slowly. I finished ny meal still fighting. I continued my day still fighting. I entered another day still fighting, two. And then I let intellectual feel her way around like the idiot she is. And she said some nonsense which I let her believe that I believed. But I don’t even remember what the fool said. I just know I don’t much like her. And onwards the story went. And it seemed to have been waiting. So many pieces fell into place. It’s as though the connection between the two parts of the story was not the efficient bridge I intended to be and saw it as, but a bridge disconnected at its middle – broken and therefore not only useless but a distraction.


This is why I enjoy breaks, not holidays. There’s so much fun to be had when your mind can touch on this and that while you eat slowly. So much…


I did say I was back, and I am. But there’s more to tell, and we’ve got time.


See you on Thursday!