 |
| {Video Here - click.} |
Recently, I got to play
'Meet-the-Author' at Mira Costa HS, with a group of AP English
students who've been reading my blog. This was my fourth time,
talking shop with Alan's classes. These conversations always go
dependably in directions I do not expect, pulling words out of me
that I hardly recognize as my own: brilliant young minds, like an
airy stack of leaves, igniting a damp log. This was a good morning. –
2017 March 31
~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~ * POEM 1
* ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
“What
do you do when you get stuck—
like
writer's block? Do you ever?”
Oh, yeah: Anybody who wants to say
something and is not ready—
It's the Five-year-old Frustration
Phenomenon: like—
“I really
have something to say!
And
I do not have the
tools to communicate it right now.”
My advice for writer's block is:
Get out of your head, get into your
body.
If you do yoga, do yoga;
if you like hikes, get out into nature;
I went out for a barefoot walk at 11:30
at night
and found a tree that looked really
lonely,
and just hugged it for a while (
trees need love to).
And THAAAT—that
centering—
that time when you fall
into silence and just work:
you listen to your breath,
you realize that you are
this miraculous pulsing thing...
Get into that for a while,
and your “writer's block” will
disappear.
~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~ * POEM 2
* ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
“What's
your favorite media to consume?”
Music? Simon and Garfunkle—
lyrics are really important to me;
that ruins a lot of music for me.
Clubs are, hellish for me:
you walk in, it's like—
“Mm-ch / Mm-ch / Mm-ch /
Shots! Shots! Shots!
Everybooodyyy!!'
Oh.
Couldn't you have at least listed
three types of shots?
~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~ * POEM 3
* ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
“I
guess my question is just like, Humor?
Because
I feel like most people who are first trying to get out in the
creative path, are trying to be very think-y and are very isolated
and, trying to be Serious?”
Yeah. I wish I were funnier.
I think the Dalai Lama is hilarious;
that's sort of my bar.
If at some point I can get to the point
where I'm just spontaneously laughing
at things,
and making other people laugh—because
they're happy—
that would be great.
Humor is a really important educational
tool;
it's a test of the synchrony
between you and your audience:
You can be serious, and
if somebody doesn't get your idea,
you can be like,
“Ooh! Yeah! I'm too good
for you, blabla-Bla-bla-bla'”—
But if you make a joke and no one
laughs at it?
You can't say,
“Well, that's because
I'm too funny.”
[laughter]
No! It's because your joke
sucked.
So—that's the next stage,
for me.
~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~ * POEM 4
* ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
“What
do you believe happens after death?”
Well, I think about that the same way I
think about vegetarianism;
that these dividing lines that people
put between
life, and death, and me, and you,
are—to a certain
extent—fictitious.
Now, of course, if I go like this
[finger-flicks her forearm],
I didn't feel that; you felt that.
Right?
But that's just because you happen to
be the collection of nerves that are next to me.
That doesn't mean that we aren't
sharing the same air.
And at some point I'm drinking whatever
you're giving off.
We share everything.
And when you think about that,
then what is death?
It's the dissolution of the current
collection of elements that you are,
and you're passing them on to other
things:
it's your final donation.
So—but people ask,
“What happens to your
'self'? What happens to your thoughts? What happens—?”
Well: tell me any thought you've ever
had
that is external to your senses.
Tell me about LOVE,
without telling me how it makes you
feel like—
like the weight of the world is lifted
off of you and your lungs are in free-fall.
Right? You can't.
Tell me about HATE
without talking about rising
blood-pressure and the narrowing of focus.
You can't.
Everything is bounded by our physical
experiences,
so when your body
goes? Everything goes.
And
that's something to make peace with.
And I
think the fact that it's a donation,
makes
me more happy about letting it go.
Because
I've seen some pretty cool earthworms in my day …
they
know their place, and they do good things.
And if
I can be fuel for an earthworm?
I'm
alright with that being my final legacy.
~~~~~~~
* ~~~~~~~ * POEM 5 * ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
“What's
your spirit animal?”
I've
been told a pit-bull.
“I
don't know if I see that.”
[echoes of agreement]
Okay,
I'm sorry—maybe we should open this up: What is my spirit animal?
“If
a bird and a dog had a love-child, it would be you:
like,
a falcon and a lab.” [echoes
of “Yeah”]
“I
was just gonna go with some sort of puppy—
something
super playful and vibrant.”
Alright.
“Maybe,
like, a pit-bull with a jet-pack.”
~~~~~~~
* ~~~~~~~ * POEM 6 * ~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~
I am a
33-year-old; you are young high schoolers, who I was…
is
there anything you want to know
about
what's going to be happening to you
in the
next 15 years?
“You
seem very content with yourself—
what
is the most important thing, in achieving that state?”
Recognize
that Hatred, and Bitterness,
and
all of those other negative emotions
are
not laser-beams; they are ATOM BOMBS:
you
think you can be angry
at another person
without
being angry at yourself—
that
is bullshit;
you
think you can hate one
person
and
love another person—
that
is bullshit.
If you
build love, you will
have love;
if you
build peace, you will have peace.
If you
build complaints and excuses,
your
mind will be filled
with
complaints
and excuses—
and it
will make your life SAD.
Find
the CONNECTION you have
with
the people who irritate you;
find
the connection you have
with
your sandwich;
find
the connection you have
with
tables … [touches a table]
This
used to in the ground, in a mountain, on a tree somewhere.
Appreciate
everything that is around you, and has been brought.
And
realize that [one finger] you owe
nothing,
[two
finger] you deserve
nothing—
“You
are imagining you owe
You
are dreaming you deserve”:
We are
here.
And
that's like a small miracle.
And if
you just keep your mind on that,
you
will start feeling very PEACEFUL—
because
there's no pressure on you:
if you
just sit there, in that chair, and don't hurt people?
You're
doing alright.
“Leave
things as good as you found it; everything else is extra credit.”
That's
one of my life principles.
