Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Getting Into A Groove

Day two: 5:18am...yesterday my mind was on fire. After I worked in the morning I had a million things to say. This morning a bit foggy, but like exercise, the warm up is everything. Of course the fun of blogging is seeing the uncensored, sort of...

When I taught high school in New York City, besides generating great stories of students using expletives like "pussy" I was also working on my MFA at Brooklyn College. At the time, the amazing program coordinator of Poetry, Lou Askoff, said write one hour a day. It's not enough, but it will get me started and I am a much happy person for having done that.

This morning though, have I squandered my moment to write by surfing the net looking at my former professors? I suffer from lack of focus or comparison angst. So much of what I have done does not fit neatly into any category on a C.V., but has made for a great life. Now my film—which is fiction and inspired by the Emily Dickinson poem, "I heard a Fly Buzz..."—falls into the same category. Whiner is what I hear. The artmaking process is so high-maintenance and I should know since I ran a gallery for three years in NYC a life time ago. All artists are the same, even me. Would I want to be my gallerist? Probably not. Too whiny with a lack of focus and way too high-maintenance.

My old rule when I was writing every morning at 5:00am was that I had to be at my desk. Some days I didn't write, I read poetry. Today was maybe that kind of day. The daughter is up...and the chant of GET DRESSED has began. That needs to be a new kid chant. In my dissertation there are number of baby chants like:

Change my diaper!
Change my diaper!
I don’t care what’s in it!
But do it right this minute!
Change my diaper!


...I need kid chants now. 6:30am comes so quick. Now she and I are in a race to get ready. What's so funny and awful at the same time is that my beautiful spirited daughter is just like me. Let's review: Hocus, pocus, let us focus on our task right now. I should follow my own words...Hocus, pocus, let us focus on our task right now...Hocus, pocus, let us focus on our task right now...Hocus, pocus, let us focus on our task right now...

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