Tribute. Los Que Saben.

Last night Brooks and I were on the phone talking process and art and inspiration for at least two and a half hours. 

He quit his job the day after I did in March, we both worked in the same office and the idea was we were both moving to the city to follow our dreams.  He is doing amazingly well, is the host beginning tonight of the Balitmore Song Writers open mic in Fells and this is among at least four or five other big deal things.  When we used to work in cubicles across from one another every week we would talk high-energy, deeply riveting "Narnia" talk (Narnia a reference he came off the cuff with last night, talking about relationships with "normal", un-arty people.  We need them, he said, "to help pull the ropes and lead us out of Narnia.") I used to grab him and yank him towards Narnia--literally take him hand and run us out the back door of the employment agency and through the hard parking lot in the cold light of the sun.  I'd make us walk on a patch of grass-slanted hill, the only section in that area of Easton not paved.  Eventually he caught on and would do the same to or for me.  Yank me out the door when my head needed a check and take me out for duende talk, food and sun.  Our enthusiasm, talking Campbell's bliss-talk and serendipity and inspiration--constantly quoting philosophers or poets or musicians musicians musicians--was unstoppable.

I've tried not to think about it at all and the proof of that fact is it didn't even come up in conversation last night, but my laptop is down and it is killing me. The hardest part of not having it is staring me down this morning--all scowling face and fang-toothed today.  And that's going on the road.  Ahead of me is lots of uncharted time, 6 days in fact of road trip, that would normally be cleaved in to long swaths at various coffee shops between Annapolis and Baltimore working on my novel and blogging and so forth.  The thought of being without that sustenance is making my stomach turn.  The other thing about not having my laptop is not being able to write poetry, too, which I am used to doing at least once a week propped up in bed on a lounge of pillows in the most comfortable place in my world, letting the words drop and flow and come and come.

This all happened in Memphis the week before last when I went to visit Sean.  He has this intercom thing that runs radio stations all through the house and we listened to Christmas music from the moment my family stepped through the door.  So I was in my guest room after a shower and turned on my laptop and turned off the intercom and typed in the address for Pandora.  I'm all for being festive but I needed a break and the myth is always upon me these days, the creative life flourishing there beneath the surface at all times and I believe I need to nurture it much as I can, I believe this can be done through music and reading poems and being present in the still cold winter air and also by being brave.  There were ads that kept popping up on my computer though, and a commercial for Wal-mart that wasn't even connected to a pop-up but that wouldn't turn off.  Next just like that my adrenaline was already going and my head full of panic and memories of the late nineties and the computer at mom's infested with spyware.  I quick turned my laptop off and pretended it wasn't happening and I numbed the part of me that needs that nurturing same as it needs air.

A few days later Justin from work texted me through trying to remove it on my own.  It didn't work.  Full-fledged denial kicked in, this was last week on Tuesday.  I have literally glossed over the reality that my laptop is unusable.  This weekend my dad was home, rendering the computer I am typing on at this moment--in his bedroom--unusable.  I pretended like the urge to write just wasn't there. This is similar, for those of you unfamiliar, to say not having a tongue but trying to pretend you are able otherwise able to eat and speak. I laid in bed with library books all weekend listening to the radio. My music is on my laptop, too.  I kept telling myself, this too shall pass.

And therein, the point of this post.

Thank god for Brooks, for Sam, for Erika. The ones who need the nurturing as much as air.  I lived for years denying that part of me, and then wondering why I felt so consistently deadened inside.  I am writing an entire book about this struggle.  I dont feel crazy, or like it's something made up, anymore.  In the past month I have had extensive conversations with each of those people about this very thing.  It makes me miss Laura Walsh, who I spent every solstice with for years, and our talks.  Laura who sat for hours and hours in the Chestertown coffee shop with me discussing this struggle as I bit by bit garnered the strength I'd need to change my priorities.  So this post is for them, the crazies.  For Laura and Kat, Erika and Kirsten.  For Molly, who lost the battle.  For Sam and Brooks, the two most kind and gentle, glorious magician men I have ever known.  This holiday, at the end of this good year, I am so, so thankful to have such tribespeople in my realm.

So long as I have pen and paper I will have to be alright.

And that is all I know to say about that.