Listening to a music for writing playlist. A tray full of pumpkin, onion and tomatoes roasts in preparation for the next round of pumpkin soup to warm the core. Inspired to take moments away from other more pressing and productive chores and creative pursuits. It is autumn, 13 degrees Celcius outside and drizzly intermittent showers blow in and out. This is not the kind of weather that I would like to be a stockman on a horse.
I am now listening to a beautiful piece of classical music by Litvinovsky – Pelléas and Mélisande: I. Ils étaient comme des enfants. In English that translates to “They were like children,” and that reminds me what I am doing-writing.
For the time is often filled with trivialities and chores so in order to write, one must make writing opportunities. I live where I work, an old theatre one called the “Arcadia Theatre” but now home to the “Australian Poetry Hall in Fame” in Guyra, Banbai/Kamilaroi country. Living where I work and working where I live has both positive and negative aspects. One of the negatives is that it’s easy to fill the time with work and drudgery. The positive is that I have at hand a whole space in which to follow creative pursuits, a big child’s garden, in which to nurture the soul and the spirit and remind oneself that life is for enjoyment not suffering.
One of the simplest pleasures is writing. That’s why it is worth creating opportunities to write. Have a note book handy, write on a smart phone write on a computer to create a piece of literary art which echoes down through the eons for future readers to unearth nuggets of gold. Writing is not everyone’s cup of tea but for me it is a well drawn cup of Barry’s Irish tea with a dash of milk and the teabag left in.
Two hours after I began writing this piece the last third of a mug of tea is lukewarm but still strong tasty and drinkable, the pumpkin soup is blended and ready to serve and numerous interruptions have passed. These interruptions include Mediterranean field mushroom cups, avocado on toast, three glasses of fresh pressed juice and a delivery of an old radio, record player and a slide projector. The rain has definitely set in and I still do not envy the stockman Clancy of the Overflow on his horse in the rain.
Simple pleasures are life’s treasures like classical music on a rainy day
Simple pleasures are beyond measure, no price can be put upon play
Simple pleasures are diamonds of leisure, in a warm room writing away
Earlier this week I wrote a piece of poetry about a man who does all the enjoyable things twice but if it causes him pain then he goes and does something which he enjoys. The poem is simple titled “Double Dan”
Double Dan
There is a happy man who does everything twice
If it brings him joy and makes him feel nice
But if it makes him sad, feel horrible and mad
He doesn’t repeat it, he does things that make him feel glad.
He skied down a hill and skied down a hill again
Then he parachuted once and a second time my friend
He swam with a crocodile and a great white shark
Then he went and danced at a festival in a park
He rode a camel across a desert and then he rode it back
Twice took a submarine into a deep ocean floor crack
Then then he watched a horror movie and couldn’t crack a smile
So he played a game football with his friends for a while
If it makes him feel good he’ll do it one more time
He climbed a mountain twice to feel twice sublime
But he’ll only do it once if he shits his pants
Then to feel better he’ll play football or dance
There is a man named Double Dan, who’s a happy man
He does the fun things twice just because he can
But he’s no twit and if it makes him feel like shit
He’ll change what he’s doing and never repeat it.
There is a lot that I could write about doing the things that you love and not repeating unpleasant or harmful experiences. However time is limited. It is now 3:30pm and I have been writing this piece of content for over 5 hours. There are days where I want to write more than I have time for and when I have not written anything for a few days I start to get concerned that I am not being productive enough as a writer. The fact is that it’s not the writing that I don’t do enough of, it’s the publishing. It’s the part of the creative process where nothing new is written and the formatting, editing, uploading to Amazon etc. and it all seems like too much work. So I procrastinate, avoid and do the easier, simpler things like cook pumpkin soup or write a poem.
This week is the second birthday of the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra, a place to celebrate poets past, present and emerging. There is always something to do and much more to be done so it is easy to be distracted and forget to write. However, April is the month of #TheDirtyThirty challenge on facebook. This is where we are challenged every day with a prompt to write a piece of poetry. I am looking forward to it as there is nothing as rewarding as creating a piece of random poetry from a random prompt.
Thundercloud Repairian 