inspired by trial&error

Everytime I get a new writer’s magazine, I feel a burst of inspiration. I begin to think that I can be a writer. The funny thing is, most of the time, the best pleasure comes from reading about writing and imagining that life or from the dream of studying writing. Let’s face it: writing itself is painful.

The articles always inspire me. I can do this. I like to look at the ads, calling out the best schools for low residencies, for nonfiction, for poetry, for place, for travel, for conferences, for workshops. I check out the locations: could I really see myself living in Connecticut? Probably not.

I found a program on Whidbey Island of all places: a low-residency nonfiction workshop. I began to plan out my imaginary life, writing when I get home, mailing in my work, attending two-week long workshops. Could I really do that? I want to learn. I struggle when I’m not actually in a classroom. I like someone to tell me what I do not know; I don’t like to figure it out by trial and error.

But I guess that’s what a lot of adult life is. Like how I’m learning that having a roommate in a studio apartment probably wasn’t the best idea. Like how I’m learning that committing to a 9-month study at church wasn’t in good timing right now and how I don’t have enough of a foundation to learn the content on my own (I need a teacher, not a bunch of articles).

I’m in a funny place. I’m looking for new apartments, and while I’m really ready to live alone, I panic that maybe I’m not. Furthermore, I find myself feeling stuck with this church class. Sometimes it feels like I do it just to keep up with everyone else because I am afraid that I might miss out on some gem. Sometimes I feel like I have to stick with it because I dropped out of grad school, so if I drop out of the class, how do I think I could ever finish an MFA?

I’m trying to wait things out—get a better feel for what the hell is going on right now. Frankly, most of the time I have no clue. I feel caught in one of those rolling cumulus clouds that turns darker before a storm. You never notice the grey getting deeper until it overtakes the sky.

I’m not really sure what the darkness is right now. Sometimes it comes in random pieces of sadness that keep me from doing anything but lying on the couch wondering what it matters if I don’t write that paper or don’t ever publish a book. Sometimes it’s the dissatisfaction of writing the paper and pressing send, only to reflect that I’m walking away from it with nothing but a sinking feeling of vain effort. Sometimes it’s the worry that I’m not spending enough time with my dog.

I think that muses like to play with my strings. They turn and twist the knobs, keeping me just in tune enough to get by yet just off pitch enough to sound sour.

I think that’s my problem in general—that I’m too general. Here I am trying to be everybody, trying to be a painter, a writer, a potter, a student, a worker, a musician…a whatever. I’m not really good at any of it, but I sure can bullshit a lot. I’ve tried to narrow down, but it always leaves me with a hole—feeling like I need to paint again or need to throw some clay sometime in the predictable future so that I can be whoever it is I think I am—the unchanging devotions of self.

I think that this season is a big life-defining time.

Having a puppy is doing some of that work: I can’t paint with her around because, well, she wants everything I have, and paint + dogs don’t mix very well, and dog hair paintings aren’t really what I had in mind.

I like to think that if she calms down in five or seven years, I’ll be able to stand at a desk with paint all around me, and she’ll lie on the floor watching but not wanting.

That’s the trouble with this time. Everything that could happen isn’t right now, and that’s hard to accept. There’s a waiting period. There’s the need to gather funds. There’s the need to organize what I currently have. There’s the need to plan with no “launch date” in site.

My prayer during this season is that I can be okay with the waiting and the planning and not try to make it all happen right now or even next year: I need the patience to put the back-work into it now, so that when the opportunity comes, I can do it. So instead of wishing away this unproductive time, I can be just as productive, productive with the important set-up stuff—putting together a writing portfolio, gathering ceramics equipment, saving for studio space and studying for the GRE.

There’s no time to waste. I don’t have many jelly beans left.