I’m sure you’ve known something like this: the thing that didn’t become wrong, but somehow is no longer right. It sits inside that part of you with cowardice and inaction. Procrastination. Reluctance. Maybe tomorrow I won’t feel this way, you think. But you always do. Eventually, there must be an action.

I’m craving somewhere less safe, more permanent. I hope I find it. Until then, I won’t be putting anything new here. My Mental Milkcrate is full to the top.

And so I thank you. Friends, lovers, acquaintances, and passersby. The silent and the effusive. I found my voice in this space, and I’m grateful for all who witnessed, encouraged, and sympathized.

My email is jess(at)mymentalmilkcrate.ca, if you’d like to keep in touch. And I’m “milkcratejess” on Twitter.

Be well. I’ll miss you.

This season is always both contemplative and chaotic. Something about the preparations and the people creates swirls and eddies in my thought patterns but leaves a kind of stillness in the centre. I’ve watched the sunrise this morning. Gradients of orange and yellow to purple-gray clouds. I haven’t actually seen the sun yet. Such a slow process at this latitude at this time of year.

There are some few last minute tasks. But they won’t take much time. As my dad would say, “It’s time to slip into dawdle.”

I am delighted.

Delighted doesn’t quite capture it.

I am gleeful. Elated. Kid-on-Christmas-morning out of my mind.

I’ve driven on the roads that have yet to be cleared. I’ve had to be pushed onto the road by a stranger. I’ve had to forward-reverse-forward-upshift-reverse-forward on several occasions times. Getting anywhere takes that tiny bit longer that seems to make other people cranky. None of that touches this vibration of excitement. This is how all Decembers should be.

That’s a big realization — and an even bigger admission. I knew, in an off-hand, not-really-admitting kind of way, that I was a good writer. I had a knack that perhaps, kinda sorta, people found entertaining. Oh, I’ve been encouraged (repeatedly). I’ve been prodded (persistently). And I’ve worn out my heels shuffling my feet along this dirt road. Choked on the clouds of dust I’ve been kicking up. Enough is almost enough.

Strangely, I don’t feel like I’ve wasted all these years with my indecision and self-doubt. I’ve been ripening and practising. I realized how far I’d come when I was writing a short profile article about two months ago. I wrote a bit of description that I was particularly pleased with. The words lined up in front of me and danced in perfect synchronization. But as the article took shape, I discovered that little bit of description detracted from the focus of the article. So I cut it. And my heart didn’t cry out. My world didn’t collapse. The article came back to me with a resounding 96% on it.

The problem is I’m not really sure what I mean to do. I’ve given myself another few months to suss out what I want. I feel like I’m on the cusp of something huge. It’s more like a chasm that I’m going to have to crawl down without knowing where my next toe-hold is. Or maybe I’m at the bottom crawling up. I don’t know. There’s a damn lot of rock, in any case. And only a few possibilities for the consequences of climbing.

2. I got the twitter. I have no idea why I joined, and I’m not really sure I understand what the point is. But if you’re on twitter and you want to follow me (or if I can follow you), look me up. My username is “milkcratejess”. I remain uncertain and wary. For now.

3. My mind is in turmoil, and my heart has sunk. I have found out that my husband considers mashed potatoes a radical shift in the Christmas dinner traditions of his family. I argue that roasted potatoes are not my forte, and that I’m quite good a preparing mashed potatoes. Besides, I miss them sometimes.

4. The September weather has been dismayingly uncooperative. It persists in breaking records for daytime high temperatures. I want to wear sweaters, and I’m sick of my summer clothes. Far more sick than I ever get of my winer clothes. I want to wear boots. And my new wool hat.

5. I ought to have been in bed an hour ago.

I’ve decided to let go and enjoy the ride. I’ve discovered the pattern of my years, and there’s no sense in fighting the seasons. I write best when the weather is cool and I have nowhere better to be than inside. I’m going to relax in the sun as much as I can while I can go outside without six layers of clothing. Since the weather is on no schedule and follows no pattern, I’m abandoning my scheduled posting for the summer, and I’m happy with that decision. I’ll still write and some of it will end up here, but I can’t be strict with myself when there’s precious sunshine to lay around in. Things might be different if I lived somewhere with more regular seasons, but we take what we can get around here, and this year, it seems to be even less than usual.

But since I’m speaking as me and not my fictionalized narrator self, I want to say thank you to everyone who reads and comments. I’m fairly bad about responding to individual comments because I’m not always sure what to say, but I read and appreciate your words and reactions. You keep me going and you make me want to write better every time.

Affectionately,
Jess

1.
Edmonton’s incoming Poet Laureate is none other than hip-hop artist Roland Pemberton, a.k.a. Cadence Weapon. His music captures Edmonton in ways that you wouldn’t see at first glance, and he seems to intend to re-define the position of poet laureate. This news gives me deep joy.

2.
For the past two weeks, I have consciously tried to avoid cooking with meat on weekdays. I feel a lot better than I have in months. Right now it’s just an experiment. I have a solid repertoire of vegetarian recipes, and I’m going to continue as long as I can.

3.
I’ve committed to riding my bike to work at least twice a week this summer. The commute is just under 9 km and takes me about 30 minutes each way. The last 2 km or so is in a bleak industrial area, and I am almost certain to have a cross-wind in both directions. For some reason, I love my bike more this year than I did last year, and I’m less afraid of vehicles. Once I get my technique down, I think I’m going to love the ride.

4.
I have a balcony garden. So far we have successfully sprouted potatoes, onions, and beans or peas (the trough isn’t labelled and it was one or the other), and the carrots and parsnips should be coming along soon. All our plants seem content, and I think we will have a fairly successful, if unavoidably small, harvest.

5.
I spent a while feeling disconnected and untethered. I think I’ve found my way back to the quiet, contemplative places I love. Perhaps this is a temporary fearlessness, just a pause in the flurry of my mind, but it is good for now. I will breathe while I can.

I feel guilty about this lack of discipline, even though I likely read more poetry than the average North American. My guilt is rooted in this: I am a writer of poetry. Poems have always been my preferred output, and they are relatively rarely my literary choice. I used to believe, as many young writers do, that reading too much poetry would stifle my creativity and somehow deform my developing voice. Which, of course, is poppycock. Far from being damaging, reading good poetry is a humble reminder that every single thing has been written about a thousand times over and the best you can hope for is a slightly new arrangement of words. If you’re very lucky, you might discover an underused metaphor to exploit. Creative isolation only leads to unreadable drivel and a sense that you’re among the best poets of your time. But because I am aware of all this, I should be reading as much poetry as I can get my hands on as often as I can get my hands on it.

The truth, however, is undeniable: poetry is hard. Even when it’s short and simple and charming, it demands cognitive space that I don’t often believe I have. Understanding and enjoying a poem requires a mental state that is out of phase with the movement of life. Which is why I think we need it more than we know and why I don’t bother with it often enough. I’ve let my mind become flabby with too much prose, and it doesn’t like the exercise of trying to understand four lines of good poetry.

But putting in the effort to find good poems and reliable poets is usually rewarding. Poets notoriously look at people and emotions and events cockeyed. And then they share their cockeyed vision in the fewest words possible. They can tilt and jostle you, then guide around the house looking into a mirror that’s pointed at the ceiling. It can be incredibly liberating to stand on your head, even if it’s only for a few lines in a year.

I am hopeful that I can find a larger place for other people’s poetry in my life. I do have my favourite poems and poets, and I would like to keep discovering them. Discovering more. Sharing them and encouraging others to discover and share. Because if I’m not promoting and supporting other poets, I can’t complain that no one is promoting or supporting me.

Walt Whitman caught me accidentally. I found a copy of Leaves of Grass and other collected poems in the bookstore bargain bin about nine years ago. I might have paid $4 for the cloth-bound, embossed volume that I bought more for looks than for content. But then, I discovered the roaring soul of Whitman’s words echoing through my body. The tangible shudder of phrases forming images both concrete and ephemeral. I think I love him more because of the accident of our meeting. But he is also like the ocean to me. Vast and crashing and and unpossessable and so intimately interstitial. He is my going home to a place I never lived.

A noiseless patient spider
by Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

via poets.org