Moon Memo: Be Not Afraid
Hello.
I know I'm writing a lot of these lately. But it's the end of the year, and the end of the year always feels like a good time to write. To think about things. To try to move forward.
This was written over the course of a few days. Year end is upon us. Be not afraid.
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This year from a creativity point of view, I want to write 300 poems. Read a few more times in Portland. Move to a less digital setup. Turn off the distractions for longer periods of the day. Maybe set aside morning time for more thinking and less reacting.
Writing retreat in February. Theres a place on the coast that may be ideal. Other places as well. I got really caught up in looking for a place rather than, you know, thinking about the work. The work is all that matters, and we all know it.
Took NetNewsWire off my phone. It's time to stop having inboxes on my phone. I can use my ipad as my reader. I don't need everything available to me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I can make the world small again.
Computer is hub. It can have everything except for social media on it.
Ipad is consumption. Reading, news, videos, etc.
iPhone is navigator, communicator, music, etc. It shouldn't really be for reading. Or watching videos. I shouldn't be spending my morning reading email and loligagging. I can do that on my couch with the iPad if I want. I only have email on there for communication reasons.
None of this matters. None of it matters at all. Its just fiddling at this point. What matters isn't resolutions but habits. My habits are easy: write a poem. Be on time. Wear the uniform. Read more books.
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I put the Norton Anthology of poetry under my monitor as a riser. It seems like the best use for poetry right now in my life.
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Wind today. The whistle of it is kind of soothing.
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Let's be honest: the world feels very fucked. Like, Really really fucked. Jade feels it hard. I'm feeling it really hard. I've had a series of rolling anxiety attacks lately, and I'm just not sure anything can fix that.
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My backpack is my minimum viable creativity studio, really. If I was to do the work that I do in writing with only those things in there, I would be fine. A notebook and pens. Water. Power. Digital book. Laptop. Hair ties. If there was a way to add coffee and a kettle I'd be set.
Setting up new notebook for the year. Updating pens. Life is wild. But I can control what's in my notebook.
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Had my third meltdown in two weeks about work today. Getting really tired of things being held back by one weak link when it comes to something I'm in charge of. Had to cancel going to my department's holiday party because of all this, and I'm kind of upset about it. Not as upset as I should be. I'm getting more and more introverted in my old age.
I'm not old. I'm an adult who keeps fashioning her form. I don't want to be crusted over yet. I want to see what is next.
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Dark on the way to the coffee shop this morning. Stand in line talking about Gray Gardens with a complete stranger. How we all want to be Little Edie sometimes. How we are all the disappointed mother instead most of the time. My favorite barista, who I've been meeting here on Saturday's for over a year now, and whose name I can't remember. I'm a single serving in her long day, and she in mine. Her music taste is fantastic. She is one of the fellow 40 somethings that everyone assumes is older. Because in the past, we all had to have our shit together. I don't think anyone has their shit together, especially since we live in a country that doesn't have its shit together.
Jade and I talked about what America's shared culture is, and I think what we all share is fear. There is no safety net, or at least no visible one, so we are all one paycheck away from ruin. So we feel this intense sense of fear. Plus guns. Plus violence. Plus racism, and the curse of the conqueror. All of us know we shouldn't be here. All us white people having coffee with people who three generations ago remembered slaves in their life. We are afraid. Afraid we are going to lose the little bit that we have. The guy in the big truck that he doesn't actually own, that he's paying for forever. The grocery worker on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The militia man and the Antifa sweetie. The trans woman and the transphobe. We are all painful, grossly, outrageously afraid. What happens if we confront that fear inside us, and try to work to be less afraid. Is it even possible.
A friend of mine once said that the only way that she got away from the fear was to move away from America. And it took her years. She lives in a former Eastern Bloc country, one that is struggling with poverty and the rise of the right wing. And she feels less afraid, that she doesn't carry it in her bones like she did as a student, as a child. She's never coming back.
Fear has its way with us. How much of that is brought on by our culture of individualism? Of violence being a way forward? The scars of slavery? The evils of conquest? Of never being the good guys? Of being the world's arms dealer? How much does that fear creep into each of us?
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I'm supposed to be waiting expectantly in my bed for the cow girl from Tacoma to join me. To feel her body next to mine, powerful and soft. To wrestle with her and fuck and laugh and talk about wrestling and poetry and the struggles of working in health care. Instead we both got sick, and we both got overwhelmed, and we are both in our homes. And we'll have to wait. Wait to find our bodies slotting together again.
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I just realized that Avril Lavigne is April Vine, the April vineyard. Language is amazing.
Misha is the diminutive of Micheal, and means Who is Like God. Who is like God Moon?
I like that.
I really should have gone with Molly. Bitter Moon. Beloved Moon. Molly is a diminutive of Mary. Who knew?
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When I write on my laptop I engage a black and white and grey filter. I write in black and white.
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The intentions for next year, here in the Moon Memo, is to keep writing. That's the same intention for every year. Just keep writing, Misha Moon. Be like God. Be like the Moon. Keep being creative. Keep being growing and reducing. Keep on going.
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Love you all to bits. I hope you have a good new year.
Misha Lynn Moon