poetry vs sweat
I am depressed this morning, moody and grim. I blame art. I have imbibed lots of wonderful art this weekend, and I blame that. On Friday Jess and I met some of her vet school friends, and saw the phenomenal, amazing acapella group bc3 (as well as the very good Ithaca College group Voicestream) then later in the weekend we went to see the movie sideways, and on top of that, I am reading the excellent novel Middlesex (after just this last month finishing an equally terrific novel, wicked, the life and times of the wicked witch of the west)
Literature, cinema, and music have combined to place me in that introspective state that, like a sucking ocean undertow, just can bring you down till the salt water wins. Some people find the effect of art uplifting, fundamentally, I don’t. I can’t simply see something, be moved, and then get on with my life, it continues to move me as my mind chews on it. Images work their way into the coils of my brain, and stay there, like a flashbulb of a camera. This is also why I don’t watch the X-files with my wife (who is a huge fan) it gives me nightmares, almost every time.
Brief history: In first grade, I wrote a poem that blew my teacher away, and for the next two decades, my public and internal identity was as a writer. I went through high school, undergrad, and grad school getting a great literary education. Honing my craft, and seeing a life mapped out in front of me as a teacher & practicing artist.
But in high school as I was winning literary contests, true joy for me was playing hockey, diving in front of slapshots to block them, taking booming slapshots, and slamming into the boards along with other slathering crazies like myself.
In undergraduate school, as I was being published right and left, accepted almost every time I submitted writing to a publication, true joy for me was the rainy New England collegiate cycling races, and the muddy cyclo-cross racing in the fall. The pic here is of the “usual suspects” of the Hampshire College cycling team after the UMass cyclo-cross race. From L to R is Chris, Able, Earl, Donnie, Me (with smashed bike) and Evan (wearing the rubber gloves he always used to race in during foul weather, note his gap toothed smile from a bike crash earlier that year).
In grad school, I won Colorado State Universities highest literary award, I was president of the organization of graduate student writers, and graduated with distinction from my final exams. But the sharpest memory of my time there was the day I decided to cycle from my house at 5,000 feet in Fort Collins to Cameron pass at 10,200 feet and back. It was 142 miles round trip. I loved every moment of it. Descending home from the pass, I was over 50mph for about 10 minutes, incredible, passing back over what had taken me hours to climb.
The 43.84 seconds of my first 500m race in lake placid, where I suddenly discovered I had real talent at something athletic, and that someday I would skate Olympic trials (it was obvious immediately), suddenly gave me internal permission to think of myself in context of what I loved to do. It changed everything.
I still write a lot (here, for example) maybe now even more than I did when I was a true “student” of it. But I don’t create “art” anymore, I have not completed a poem in years that drinks high octane draughts from the flagon of the muse (meaning: that I think is really any good).
But I am happier now, much happier. Hmmm, its noon, I need to go and do my Russian Jump program workout. Almost 3 hours of intense working out! but when I am done, I will feel like Sisyphus who finally pushes the rock over the top of the hill. With poetry, that rock never reaches the top.
Filed under: from home
AL: “But I don’t create “art” anymore, I have not completed a poem in years that drinks high octane draughts from the flagon of the muse (meaning: that I think is really any good). But I am happier now, much happier.”
Can you ever really stop _being_ a poet, though? Even if you don’t put them down on paper, don’t you feel like you see the world through the unique eyes of someone who has lived, breathed and dreamed in poetry?
After ten years of wandering, my best friend (you know who) has just been accepted to an MA program and will focus on her poetry. Upon learning of her new path, I told her, “You are finally going to live the life you were meant to live.” I’ve always thought the same of you, Andrew — not that phenom speed skater isn’t _also_ who you were meant to be — but please don’t let the poet’s soul you caretook for so many years atrophy. You might not need to write poems, but I think the world needs to read them.
–Susan, wife of the gap-toothed longhair in the photo
thanks suz..
I must admit, I posted that pic with you in mind somewhat, I am not sure you had ever seen it, and its one of my favorite pictures of evan, the only one I have of him in his rubbermaids! it was a happy, rainy, fun race that day (the only day I EVER beat him offroad)
but seriously, I can’t stop writing, I am sure you understand, but with urges like that, its how we channel them through our lives that makes the difference in how it affects our lives.. I might come back to the musical notation of the line break someday (after all, what differentiates a poem from everything else but the line break? what is that but breath unit measurement?) but for right now.. thought here, in bloggable measure feels ok, feels enough to keep me going.. (do you feel the same way about your blogs?)
Wow. Evan Rocks the mullet hardcore.
bro, what you are really seeing is not a mullet proper, but more like helmet hair after a cyclocross race!