The Cabin

Jan 16, 2011

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Tomorrow – I’d like to go into a cabin, in the snow, in isolation, with coffee, with bread, with water, with soul, a fire in the place, the smell of smoke, feeling the drift above me. I’d like to be alone. Am I doing too much for my own good? Pushing myself to an edge? Would I fall off? Would I back away and head in another direction – West?

Give myself time and patience and minutes and you’ve done good, a pat on the back. What to do when the high is gone and you want it back? A level, another step, a bottle of wine and you think of the genes in you, the ancestry in you that drowned in wine – you see now why it can fail you, why it’s so good and then can fail you because your genes have always been too much – the make-up of you, the things you are made of, the people who made you no longer take any credit and now it’s all up to you.

Comments

6 responses to “The Cabin”

Rebecca Loudon

January 17, 2011

Something seems to have changed in your writing. I hear a stronger voice a more confident voice. A sea change perhaps inching toward a quantum leap. Maybe the new digs (lovely btw) were inspired by this change this artistic (power).
xo

Reply
1. rachvb
  
  January 17, 2011
  
  It has all seemed to be a long time in the making. I’ve felt oddly quiet the past week, perhaps an attempt to fill back up. I’ve felt stronger, too, like I’m starting here and will leap soon. Amazing to chase something for years, a way of writing, a voice I knew I had but could never get to and suddenly I am there and splashing my feet in the water.
  I’m glad you like the digs. I can’t wait to see it finished.
  You have helped me forward and I thank you. Thank you for seeing this in me.
  xoxo
  
  Reply
Marylinn Kelly

January 18, 2011

How to keep the work going when the high wears off, how to find a new kind of high, not such peaks, but one that can be sustained, the long-haul kind. Finding out to be and create at every spot on the continuum, if such a thing is possible.

Reply
1. rachvb
  
  January 18, 2011
  
  The high is when the poem is done. Patience, open eyes and a swim cap for when we dive back in with the reward of another high. I think it’s possible – if only because we can’t not do it.
  
  Reply
rebecca loudon

January 18, 2011

I think after the high wears off is when the mastery of practice becomes the goal of art of any art. Then we can write every day and not ache for the high but be danged glad when it approaches our doorway.

Reply
1. rachvb
  
  January 18, 2011
  
  You speak the truth, lady. =)
  There is something amazing in crafting a poem. The fear, the avoidance, the molding when coming back after avoidance, all the while writing other avenues and blogs and post cards and letters, all the while still writing. You go back to the poem and craft a little, get another draft, avoid it, get back to it and somewhere along the way the spark happens inside that keeps you molding and moving and practicing as you say. I used to ache for that high – I used to think the high was the poem itself, the actual art of it. But the high is just a high and cannot be maintained every day. Yes, the art of it is much more satisfying.
  
  Reply

The Cabin

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6 responses to “The Cabin”

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