Much of my writing searches for a way to let myself say all that I am capable of. This is successful to varying degrees. It’s about freedom. And like conocimiento, it appears in stages that allow our minds and bodies to acclimate while still nudging us toward the uncomfortable.
I’m in my second week of classes and have felt the culmination of understanding that has come through to me over the last few weeks, namely:
truth is a relative thing but I can promise to tell as much of it as I’m capable of at this moment.
And so I have revealed my feelings for some, and placed those feelings in context and squarely in the past. Or present but with an understanding it is an impossibility.
And I have started, tenuously, speaking with my mother again after years of not, with reminders for both me and her about the limitations of this refresher.
And I no longer cover my own abilities (or lack of abilities) but say, straightforward, here is what I can do, here is what I can offer, or here is who I am now.
Some of this understanding was forced. The last few months have been about working a full-time job, working side gigs for extra cash, writing a ton, taking writing courses, a bout of insomnia, and sending a child to medical school in an entirely different state. In the midst of that, my writing took a turn toward those emotions and beliefs denied because of self-imposed quarantine and/or lack of time.
It started months ago, when I decided to apply for graduate school. I told only a handful of friends. I’d learned enough about myself to know I need accountability. I have worked with diminished reserves since I was born so I set my parameters so high I thought every school would tell me no. I chose schools in the south, in cities with a comparable cost of living, that offered some tuition waiver or part-time research work, and whose faculty I could connect with in some way. I managed to get three schools saying yes. This is when the terror really struck.
I’ll save you the details but, in the months between acceptance and moving to the RGV last week, I told myself I may not be coming. I am not used to giving myself things. Anytime I do it feels like stealing time from those who expect me to be present and helpful to them.
Let me get back to the poetry. Within it, over the last few months, I found myself writing about night and personal transformation and music and, naturally, my own transgressive behavior while in this cocktail. I found myself working on pieces that allowed me freedom on the page and a place to play. Not just with form and layout but in giving in to the excitement of desire and want on the page.
And I didn’t have a name for this. But this weekend I took a short workshop with Gustavo Hernandez, a poet originally from Mexico now living in Southern California, who highlighted the nocturne. Mid-19th century French from the Latin nocturnus, meaning “of the night”. It originates from music, like so much of poetry does. It is described as moody, pensive, contemplative, lyrical. Its role is as a kind of bridge between human and not human, a cry of the solitary, a sleeplessness. This struck me as something I understood deeply. How many of us have recognized that this period of our time has changed us? Individually and collectively. We are in a nocturne time. And my writing has been mostly nocturnes.
The freedom of writing during the night, about the night and about the shadow part of ourselves, is about giving permission to do what isn’t allowed or spoken of during the day: that of becoming the fullest we can be without critique or giving in to others’ needs. We are speaking to the darkest moment each day brings. If we allow ourselves this solitary space, the shadow self, we can’t help but return to the light of something, having integrated our lesson. We become more ourselves. Plus, we have the evidence of some challenging poetry.
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With thanks to Gustavo Hernandez. Check out this representative poem. And buy his book.
Fantastic ❤️