Toothless Brain Puppy
Just an interlude here. A brief moment for you to better understand a little of how my mind works.
I strive to do a few things everyday, besides my regular job. I try to advance one of my (perhaps too) many goals, be it dying rope for Bunny Rope or reading a book or wrting something. The more regular the more satisfying and *fruitful these times are.
This is especially true with writing time. If I have learned anything regarding writing from the numerous things I’ve read on how to succeed as a write, it is this:
Write everyday; at the same time if you can.
Creating patterns and regular space for writing primes the brain. I have been writing at my kitchen table with my little fold-out keyboard and iPad standing at attention against the smartcover like a loyal, expectant solder. When I turn on the little green light above it, the one @lady_fox and I installed a year after we moved in, and pour myself something to drink, my brain shifts. And if, especially if, I have primed it with good literature in the hours before I sit here, my fingers can hardly keep up.
I regularly write a full poem plus some interesting fragments each night I do this. These then go into the morning editing pile for the next day.
What is really weird, just really skewed in my brain is that, when I do all of this - set myself up for success - my brain asserts that this is clearly cheating and what I’m writing is terrible and I should feel bad.
Very loudly.
Oft repeatedly.
And I find it fascinating….
I’ve achieved.. not exactly an adversarial relationship with my mind… It’s more like it’s a cute, old, and toothless puppy that clearly needs a good ear rubbing and maybe is a little hangry at the world. I’ve gotten to the point now where the Wellbutrin is just so clealy working that I’m stunned at it, my toothless brain puppy.
I tried to create an effective metaphor to describe it on the way home from work today as I was daydreaming about random phrases. The best I could muster was that disthymia, which is the lowgrade depression I have been living with my whole life, is like I’m trying to climb stairs but somebody has greased my shoes with bacon fat. I’m so enamored with the smell that I don’t notice that I keep falling down the stairs.
Wellbutrin has me just taking off the shoes, slinging them over my shoulder, and getting on with climbing them.
So. As I sit here and having written one new poem that I actually really like in about 15 minutes, 1 fragment (that stands alone better than I like), and now this entry, I’m amused that my brain is yapping that it shouldn’t be this easy. But, yeah, maybe it should be sometimes. It isn’t always, for sure.
Well, no. I guess it is right, of course.
I still have to edit the poem. And there are a number of commas to quibble over….