This section of the books store has always been my secret indulgence. While I pretend I am a history buff and will plow through a biography of Jonas Salk just because it matters, the shelves I visit when craving comfort food offer a thousand ways to mend ragged love and ease stiff perception. By following the training regimens of gurus and quacks, I seek escape from the commonplace. A simple set of exercises has the power to give each moment a jolt of clarity. Perhaps by following this five-step plan or repeating that mantra, I will unearth my calling, my companion, my faith? When I stumble across a new title on mindfulness or forgiveness, my mouth waters. What new practice shall I sink my teeth into today? How can I learn to look up and discover my way?
But now. Gads. Now that the core relationships of my life are in a jumble and I need the help more than ever, all I experience as I approach this wailing wall is sheer vertigo. Confession and prayer, careful attention to each intimate detail. . . these tasks are about as compelling as scaling a rock-face teeming with snakes. I cannot, physically cannot step within arm's length of the shelves. I stand at a safe-ish distance, assessing the spines. Each seems more coolly dangerous than the last. Relationship Rescue. Collaborative Divorce.
It appears the vast array of options for reflection and recovery is no longer a delicious smorgasbord of self-discovery. Whatever exists between those blessedly closed covers suddenly seems too much. Too much self-absorption, too much spiraling diagnosis. Too much savoring the flavor of one's own cud. Just Too. Damned. Much.
Because I cannot take one step closer, I back away, reeling, and spin into another aisle. Cookbooks, travel guides, coffee-table volumes of English gardens and lightning storms. What other skills shall I develop instead? This is the habit for a gal like me. Allow someone else to give me a prompt, a purpose, a compass point. Seek and absorb. But what of the path I have already cleared away? What of the practices I have spent the better part of three decades learning to cultivate?
I stop. Catch my breath. Enough, lady. You know where to go. It's really not so hard one you just say yes. Yes, I know my heart and I know my mind. These two are my own trusty guides.
They nudge my feet in the direction of the stationery section. Bound books. Blank parchment. There, I find the one I seek. A flashy spiral filled with lined sheets, a slick chick in a bikini on the cover sipping a martini. I pay my $10 -- too much for blank pages, but not for the lease -- and slip over to the cozy chairs to inhabit the empty rooms between the college rule. One word at a time, I fill them. This is my own text. My own story. A self-improvement section crafted by these hands.
As I begin to write, a man near me strikes up a conversation. Following a health scare, he has begun to keep a journal for the first time in his life. "What do you say in those things?" He asks, gesturing towards my book. We talk of writing whatever pulls us to the page. He tells his story about traveling the world for work, then retiring with just enough in the bank to buy into a ranch in Colorado. There, the waiting horses, the endless acres. I listen. He is hungry for an ear. I feed him mine. Little does he know, I am filling my own belly with crumbs of adventures I have not yet imagined. My journal only contains four lines, but it is fat with the nourishment I came in seeking. Before I go, I remind the fella to keep writing. He tells me the same.
It is a blessing to know simple things. Make poetry. Share bread. It is not so very hard to love this big old world when returning to what is already known. They say the only way to learn how to write is to write. Perhaps the only way to find one's way is to take a step.
Like You
Like you Ilove love, life, the sweet smellof things, the sky-bluelandscape of January days.
And my blood boils upand I laugh through eyesthat have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautifuland the poetry, like bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins don't end in mebut in the unanimous bloodof those who struggle for life,love,little things,landscape and bread,the poetry of everyone.
- Roque Dalton
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