The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.

Wallace Stevens

Weeks: 13+3

Character in search of an author

I have come to the sad conclusion that much of my neurosis is due to the large quantities of fiction I read. I get through up to 100 books in a year, almost all of them middle-brow, not too experimental, escapist novels (I wonder how much my reliance on the public library has helped determine this...) But ever since I was a child I have seen my own life on some level as a narrative, myself as a protagonist. The older I got the less like a tragic heroine I imagined myself to be, but I never stopped looking for tidy conclusions, meaningful circumstances and universal insights like the ones to be found in my books. That's why I feel like a failure if I don't know where I'm going - ok so the women in the books may not know where they're going either, but there is always the guiding hand of the author to lead them toward their destiny on the final page.

I don't think I've ever properly accepted that I'm the author of my own life, not a character in it. Being the author should give you MORE control, I suppose, but being a character gives you security. And your every action is loaded with import and 'rightness' simply because there are no other choices you can make, only what has been written for you. All the books I've been reading lately have had happy endings, and all the female protagonists have 'followed a dream' in some dramatic way, 'just knowing' what the right thing to do would be. I guess I need to accept that I won't ever 'just know'. That nobody has a grand design for me. So I'm going on a diet of non-fiction and keeping my eyes on the road instead of on the page.

How silly to be having an existential crisis at the age of 28 - didn't I go through all that when I was 18? And why can't I get this down in poetry instead of going all emoblog?

Weeks: 13

A pregnant pause

Well it has happened. I have finished my dissertation and next month will possess a piece of paper that means I can theoretically work as a librarian. Whether I WANT to or not has not yet been worked out in my head to my satisfaction. Anyway, the idea was that as soon as I emerged from academia I would have time to devote to poetry, and to the exploration of the writing process via blogging.

Only, another thing has happened in the meantime: I have become pregnant. It thus remains to be seen whether I will get any writing done before about 2050, but I am hopeful. Possibly I will write about babies.

Things I have learned so far:

1) Expecting a baby makes you radically review your entire life. I was prepared to feel anxious about being a good mother, but not about whether I was a good person. Do I deserve to bring a child into the world? If only I hadn't spent my 20s being too lazy/scared to get myself a proper career, we would have a perfect house and a sensible mortgage by now, instead of a rented one bedroom flat and a box full of unpaid bills. If only I had a dream to pursue instead of a lack of ambition that would put a stoned media studies student to shame, I could feel sure of being a serene and inspirational mother instead of a neurotic bore. If only I had paid more attention to my ecological footprint, done my own composting, bought organic all the time etc etc, I wouldn't be contributing to the global disaster that my child is going to inherit. And if I remain as expert in the art of beating myself up once I've actually given birth to this baby, I will be emotionally black and blue for at least the next eighteeen years.

2) Everyone else's opinions become simultaneously extremely important and extremely unwanted. It only takes one sniffy look at the words 'home birth', or one question about which blood tests I'm choosing to have, to make the whole fragile edifice of our choices and decisions threaten to tumble down on my terrified head. So if you're reading this and you have pregnant friends/family, try not to offer advice until asked for it. We're overwhelmed enough as it is.

Weeks: 12+6