Confession
OK, so the real reason I didn’t blog about my gigs and how they really went was because I was vying for a record deal and wanted to sound as big and as successful as possible. Didn’t want any record execs coming on here and reading about the $12 I made in tips, the weird old guys that hit on me or lugging my PA system back to my car in below zero weather.
Had to create the hype, right? Not that there were any record execs. Not that there was any reason to worry. And maybe a bit more bluntness would have helped, anyway.
So that’s me, always trying to make a good impression and get people to think everythings just fine and going smoothly. Surprising I’ve been so honest with all this baby stuff, really. But it feels right to come clean and just be who I am.
Man, this whole reproducing a new human being changes things. Gives you a whole new perspective.
Angst makes for good writing
I’m not saying I want to manifest angst. I don’t.
But reading Liz Lawley’s blog post today made me realize that one of the things that’s going on with me is that I’m just not as angstful as I used to be. Which leaves me less reason to write – blog posts, poetry or songs.
Before I went to Convergence last weekend, I had thought about how I don’t feel the urge to write poetry much anymore. I used to HAVE to write. Granted, I was 16 and sitting in American History class learning misrepresentations about Native Americans. Or algebra or French class. I had time to think and observe and let my thoughts wander. And those observations had to come out of me someway.
Then I wrote songs about finding my way through troubled relationships, happy relationships, and the tumultuous relationship with myself. I wrote about leaving home, being forced to leave my home, wanting to find a new place to belong – whatever it was that I was living and observing and processing.
Not that I haven’t been processing while pregnant. But it just hasn’t come out in words like it used to. And there has been some angst. There’s been worry. But always the knowledge that some how, things will work out in their way. And they are 
I also have a different desire these days – I want to focus on the positive things, on the things I WANT, rather than the things I don’t want. Focus on the wanting, not the lack. So writing about the things that do bring me angst, well, won’t that just bring me more angst?
So much is changing right now. In a good way. In a way I’ve always dreamed of – being married, being happy, starting a family. Growing spiritually. And personally. It feels really good (well, most of the time).
I realized while driving to work this morning that a year ago, I was playing gigs at the Lilac Festival. That I had to finagle a time change on one gig so I could make it to my friend’s impromptu wedding to play there (and attend it). I haven’t played a gig since last fall – but I can’t say that I miss it. Something else has caught my attention (hmmm…wonder what that could be?). I’m being creative in an entirely different way.
OK, enough navel-gazing. At least these days my belly does a dance for me when I stare at it. 
Weekend revelations
Stepping outside of my mind for a couple of days did me some good.
A hotel room – that’s not an adequate description. The worst hotel room I’ve ever had the priviledge of staying in – primer over seafoam green paint on the walls, baseboards coming loose from their moorings, every soap dish in the bathroom broken off, and no telephone. The fridge wouldn’t keep the ice cream cold — until I wiggled the plug and the compressor started to hum again.
And in the other room, 7 writers crammed in together in the heat, the door closed to muffle the sound of the highway traffic so we could hear each other read our musings. As much giggling (not at the poetry, at each other) and time wasting as writing.
It was a good time, Convergence 2005.
Eventually I might have some of my missives up here. Don’t worry, I didn’t step outside of my head too much – they’re all about Duncan and Kevin and food. But it did offer me the opportunity to think and write more creatively. It’s easy to get stuck in the dry wasteland of press releases – who, what, when, where, why you should care. Harder to become unglued and explore with words again.
In the mean time, here’s a poem one of my convergence colleagues sent me that I’d sent him some time ago to post on poetryproject.org that he’d just discovered in an unchecked e-mail account. ooohh, it’s today’s Poem of the Day.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
12:04 PM
Sitting in a meeting
I could sit here and pretend to take notes.
It’s not that I don’t have anything to say
or that I’m not thinking the thoughts other people
are voicing.
But my mouth doesn’t want to form the words just yet.
It’s like sitting at a bar, accepting a drink
from a guy named Chuck.
Listening to the story of why his wife left after an affair
with the preacher
and the dog ran away.
The thoughts are there, the things to say.
But undecided if I really want
to get involved.
He doesn’t know me
yet.
Doesn’t know those thoughts and hasn’t seen
my flashes of genius.
I might selfishly keep them to myself.