I am so tired tonight but in a good way. I went to a poetry reading this evening and felt relaxed but also concentrated deeply.
I didn’t go because I thought is what I should do. I realized that has been my motivation for years. Go because it seems good to do, but then, I am thinking of what is next, what I could watch at home, etc. and I barely catch what I have heard, barely. Maybe I grab a book or ticket stub to remember the event that I didn’t even attend with my whole being. This is the life of someone not yet present.
Maybe this is why when I look at all of my memorabilia, it doesn’t have much meaning. I wasn’t there. I was on some kind of mission to remember everything, to record that I did something, that I was climbing out of the moras. But I wasn’t there. I look at travel pins from over two decades and have a hard time remembering what they were for. In addition to buying the pins, I have a small book that details what I bought them for, why and when.
This is the mind of a person that is not whole, someone trying to make a life out of something. It's the actions of someone who spent decades not living a life they wanted to live and is trying to make up for lost time.
All of my family members do this in some small way, it’s interesting. My brother does it, a bit, and uncle, aunts, my parents. They may not all collect momentos of events, but they collect a lot of things.
Are we happy in those moments or are we hoping someday these things together will feel more whole than our souls do...?
So tonight, I really listened to the poems. The quiet reading, the pauses, the reflections and depths these poems came from. Over the years, over time, long walks, times in the shower, scratches of paper, notecards, backs of napkins. The story of how the poems are born is the story of a life.
This poet has worked on this poem for 15 years. She hates this poem. She hates that it is never done, that it goes on like an endless ball of rubber bands. There is always another rubber band to add to the ball. Why can’t these lines be done. Why do they continue to need new lines.
Poets and business owners
Afterwards, I waited to look over the books and saw her standing nearby, half back from the table, watching me fondle his book (would she buy it/would she not?) I recognized that expression… the desperation, the love, the exhaustion, the happiness, the pain, the journey, the lack of confidence.
I recognized that collection of emotions that flickered on her face. I have felt those same feelings trying to sell our company's products to semi-interested buyers. My soul however isn't as tied up in what we've produced as hers is. I'm the sales person, not the creator.