One of the many reasons why I have this Substack is to flesh out writing ideas. Of which I have none. Aside from my day job (doesn‘t count) I haven’t written anything but Substack posts in months. If you’ve paid attention, you know that amounts to … not a lot of writing.
Last fall, after a really shitty week, I declared myself finished. Finished writing. Finished chasing unattainable things. Just … finished. I’ve done a pretty great job of sticking to this declaration, hermiting my way through winter. While I did make two Chicago trips in a month, and spent a night in Kansas City with my kid, I’ve otherwise stayed close to home, questioning how long I might stay put.
I’m currently at The Mud House, my forever coffeehouse home, where I had a quick lunch with a friend and now have time to write for a few hours. I’m on the last day of a self-imposed four-day work sabbatical. Even with whittling so much away from my life, I managed to somehow reach a level of burnout that requires a return to the factory settings. Four days ought to fix it. (It hasn’t.)
While I say I’m dedicated to my declaration of hermitting, I’m inching out. I have ridiculous concert plans scheduled for June. I went out for dinner with a friend on Saturday. I keep going to physical therapy in hopes of having a body that doesn’t resist doing things in the near future. So I guess I’m writing, even though I have no idea how or why.
I keep hearing messages about the importance of art, especially right now. The only thing on my to-write list is some poetry inspired by Woody Guthrie’s song “All You Fascists Bound to Lose.” That feels absolutely necessary to write, seeing as I could find myself reading whatever I write in Tulsa this summer. And I have a nonbinary kid living in Missouri. We’ve taken stark fascist turns and people are dying because of it.
Writers should be at the forefront, screaming warnings of the dire situations in store for humanity if we continue on this path.
But I am so tired. I have nothing new to say. I’m just here, physically big and existentially small.
Last night I got too high. This never happens, because I keep my cannabis use tightly controlled. Edibles make it easy. Last night, I had a sizeable but by no means unusual dose left in a bottle of THC tonic. Apparently I hadn’t been shaking the bottle enough when I took previous doses because all the THC molecules had settled on the bottom of the bottle, to be ingested in that one slug last night.
It’s embarrassing to be a pretty seasoned weed aficionado who accidentally gets too high. And, it seems, my actions had punitive damages too because I didn’t just get sleepy and paranoid. I went into a state where my brain replayed every single moment in my life where I made the wrong decision, did something stupid, or otherwise acted in a way that has led me to absolutely ruin everything in my life.
By the time I crawled into bed, I was a shell, the crisp remains of a pest that leaves nothing but its own destruction when it leaves.
I slept well, aside from waking up at 1 a.m. with heartburn from the peanut butter trail mix I ate when the munchies hit. Still, I awoke hyper-aware of all the failures in my life.
I like to think my brain was shedding all my negative thoughts and self-beliefs through a tiny baby version of a bad trip, but they seem to still be well intact. Plenty of those thoughts pertain to my writing. Or lack thereof.
In the last few weeks, despite hermitting, I’ve made a few online acquaintances. Some are from the online Afghan Whigs world. One was a wrong number that texted me*. With all of these friends, I haven’t mentioned my Woody Guthrie manuscript beyond maybe saying in passing that I have a manuscript I wrote. Until now, not mentioning the manuscript seemed as outlandish as not mentioning CJ. It’s been that much a part of my identity for nearly a dozen years. I no longer want to talk about it, or explain it, or why I haven’t done the work to publish it. I am tired. And I don’t really care.
*I know this is a story that probably needs to be told. A woman named Anita texted me by accident on Friday. As I often do with wrong numbers, I responded and was nice about it. She was looking to set up a golf date. I said my golf skills are limited to drinking beer on motorized carts. She lives in L.A. I love L.A. and so it goes. We’re friends now.
Anyway, I have this idea in my head that I’ll keep hermitting through the last winter days. Days like yesterday, before the trip. Woke up, drank coffee with my cat, oatmeal for breakfast. Sobbed through the Jason Isbell/Amanda Shire documentary, and texted a tiny bit. Suffered a mild overdose of a very safe medicinal. Got a good night’s sleep. Woke up cantankerous and uninspired. It’s a life that doesn’t contribute much but doesn’t hurt much or overreach my abilities. That should be enough.
But there’s fascism. And I’m supposed to write poetry about fascists being bound to lose. By whose rules am I supposed to be writing? My own. Every summer since 2018 (save 2020-2021’s Covid disruption) I’ve had poetry selected to read in Tulsa at a poetry even for Woody Guthrie’s birthday. It’s not like the world will end without my words. Seems to be doing a good job of ending without my input.
Maybe without plans, I become a nihilist. Maybe I’ve cared myself into oblivion. Maybe this is how the fascists win—by dulling our senses through legal weed and genocide when we’ve been bombarded by so many emergencies real and fabricated that we just can’t anymore.
I was going to end this by posting a poem that begins, “Aren’t you tired?” But I can‘t remember the next line or title or poet. Googling “Aren’t you tired poem” brings link after link to pages of different poems. I didn’t even know where to begin clicking to find the one that I may have imagined. If I do write these fascism-fighting poems, I know what lines I won’t begin with. One of the poems essentially lectured me like it had read what I’ve written today.
That’s enough progress for today.
(It’s entirely possible I was thinking of Leonard Cohen.)
I can relate so much to this, Robin. February was a really rough month for me both physically and emotionally and I struggled mightily with finding a reason to be creative. And yeah, fascism in America is on full display and it’s disheartening and terrifying. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that writing and being creative makes me better. Even when it’s a slog. Even when the work is shitty and embarrassing. Even when I don’t know how or why. And I am of the mind that when creative people are being creative, and concerned citizens are engaged, educated, and aware, that’s when fascists lose. I’m sorry things have been tough. Thank you for your honest piece. We need to give ourselves permission to struggle and not know what to do. It’s a hard thing to admit, but I think necessary. Take care
Keep writing, no matter how (small) / when / why / or where!