I am exhausted.
Exhausted and afraid. I’ve been writing a lot about things that have happened. Things that have long since past. I am watching the news, filtered through headlines, wondering what the hell I am going to do. I want to write, but the pen feels heavy and the ideas feel sealed.
They exist within the coconut, but me being too scared to crack it open, I am resigned to peel them hair by hair.
It’s not a very elegant metaphor, nor does it speak to the fact that I have become a frequent journalist. But words take longer this way. And there’s a hesitancy to share them because they come from a place that is more direct than what a keyboard can offer.
Moreover, I think I’m still trying to unlearn what I learned during my time as a mass communications student and music journalist: it has to be fast. It has to be timely. If you’re not first, you’re last. Of course that’s not what they teach in mass communications—not explicitly. In most journalism classes, one is taught to confirm before publishing. To make the words bulletproof.
But that’s an old school of journalism predicated around newspapers and the knowledge that one at least has a reasonable deadline for morning, evening or noon. It has no answer to the constant stream of news that comes out these days, and soon the saying “trust, but verify” has been adjusted to “publish, but modify.”
No shade to that either. In case you didn’t know, I publish and republish maybe three to five times in the first 15 minutes because a quick adjustment takes hold after the thousandth reading and I have to wonder how stupid I was not to see it the previous 999 times.
Alas, that’s how it goes sometimes. The best I can do, or should do is make an edit notification should I change the fundamentals of message. In most cases, I’m just refining clunky sentence structure or picking a better word.
But all of this is to say that I am worried. I am worried that my slow pace and has resulted in me falling behind or worse, staying behind. How is that worse? Well I’m not sure——I don’t really have any interest in keeping up with the Joneses of the world, which is why I quit doing music journalism for the most part. The treadmill was a dreadful experience, though I understand the need for it.
There are things to look forward to this week——Oregon Country Fair is upon me, and I’m doing more than ever to help make sure my theme camp sets up smoothly!
But instead I feel like my friends are undertaking some truly transformative experiences and I just… kind of am as I always was. Maybe this is a devaluation of a prolonged depression, a hand-wave of an episode of personal tribunal. But it’s just how I felt right now, and I didn’t know what to do with it.
Probably should have put it in my journal. Instead I wrote this poem. I hope you enjoy. And yes, I will have some more Patreon exclusive poems and photographs coming up this week.
The Staying Behind Is The Hardest Thing
When the world turns ever thus
When the frost sees the sun
But never feels the heat
When the hand moves to wipe
Away the wet, only to find
The rust.
Thank you to my Patreon subscribers, including Jenny, Michael, Roshi, Zero and Phil for being such patient and supportive persons. Your support makes this enterprise possible and for that I am eternally grateful. If you would like to join our awesome group of Casual Ramblers, click on the button below! Patrons receive exclusive access to quarterly short stories, and early access to my monthly poetry and photography posts.
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