Poetry and Laughter

01/15/10

I went out of the house this afternoon for the first time since last Saturday night, when I had dinner with friends.  I’m admittedly depressed and content to stay in the comfortable place that is my home.  The weather has been too cold for me, and the dogs and I have hunkered around the fireplace, they napping and me knitting or birthing poems, which is almost as much fun as childbirth.  Sadly (or not), some of my best work happens when I feel depressed.  Then I start picking the poems apart, tweaking here and there, deleting unnecessary words or repetitious ones, checking for sounds that work (alliteration) trying to tighten the work without turning it into an unintelligible skeleton of words.  Writing a decent poem is hard work. I want to start a blog of my poems but haven’t figured out the copyright laws for the internet.  I’m going to call the local bar association and see if we have a copyright lawyer in town.  I searched online but came away confused.  Bloggers that I follow publish their poems online, but I’m not sure they care about anyone stealing them.

A friend coaxed me out today to go to the picture show (something we say down here in The South) to see “It’s Complicated.”  I can’t remember laughing so hard in a very long time.  I fact, I did a butt check when I got home, hoping I had laughed some of it off.  I was good to laugh, really laugh like you mean it, when you can’t stifle it and pray that you won’t start screaming and be asked to leave.  I didn’t know I had that much laughter in me.  It must be like tears, always there and looking for an excuse to come out.

Since I gave myself permission to cry at any time and in any place, I’ve cried less than before.  It’s a tad easier to talk about Clint without “tuning up to cry,” an expression my mother used.  Remember, she’s the one who wouldn’t let me cry when I was little.  I remain sad and very lonely, but something good is happening, I think.  My wounds may be forming scabs - maybe.  Now I have to learn how not to pick at them.