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slow magic

2023-05-29

3 minute read

Not sure why I'm still trying to do this everyday but it's not a bad impulse. I'm really not sure how put the time aside for it now, when I have so much more restriction on my time than before. Perhaps it feels more necessary?

Padraig O'tuama said this in the latest episode of Poetry Unbound, paraphrasing something Marie Howe said to him:

We write as evidence of being alive. We write as a way of being alive, to attune us to our lives, rather than some imagination of eternal life through our writing. That writing has a purpose of paying attention to the world, rather than thinking it'll survive my own life.

Writing as a way of being alive

I feel more confident writing now. More confident than when I started 11 months ago. It is still daunting to think about turning my hand to critical writing, where to be any good it has to be any good, but not as daunting as it was.

working hard

I went into the office today, it felt exhausting. I get cravings, I get distracted, I get bored. I miss being on holiday. Like I said in a previous entry though, I feel capable and competent. I found myself running curl commands to poll an api for Optimizely. I find myself critiquing the state of things I've been left, and seeking to improve them. The classic new hire energy. But I remember even in eStar I felt a drive to improve, though I didn't get very far with it. There were small steps in the right direction - I improved my documentation and note taking habits.

daily entries

I will need to keep them smaller, I can't be writing 1 to 2 hour long entries like I was when I was on holiday.

I'm not sure how I'm actually going to get my exercise in either, I may indeed need a trainer to motivate me. I don't really want to signup for a gym based one though? I have a gym at work, weights at home, a bouldering wall and outdoor bars between me and the office. I don't want to add more things to my life.

I don't want to add more things to my life

This reminds me, one goal that is firmly planted in my mind since coming back: I don't want to have any more things. Of course, this is contradicted by the big list I made last entry of all I want to buy, but I guess I really feel like my time in melbourne is going to wrap up in a year or a year an a half, and I don't want to make that any more difficult by getting more things. I don't want to take L's room. It's bigger, and I'll need to fill it, or one way or another I'll end up filling it. Buying things is a curse and a trap.

what else

I found this are.na channel: questions that can catalyze poems. I'm going to use some of them for my questions section today

I've got a couple of changes I want to make to Pompom:

listening to

Avoiding Pain by Slow Magic

I find it really funny but also touching and beautiful, the repeated sample (refrain?): "I don't want to feel this way". You can't really get this volume of repetition in poetry the way you can in dance music, and the brevity is so honest, so real.

questions