XTREME POETING

I have been trying to write a little each day. It is working. I can feel myself coming back to myself. I work out what I think by writing it down. If I don't do that then yes, I am failing myself.

Somebody today told me that I use a lot of "extreme" words. (The kinds of words that tip you off to the idea that a true or false question should be marked 'false.' - Always, never, etc.) I refrained from making a joke about XTREME POETING.

I make an X in the calendar box when I write in my poem notebook. It has been a week. I have written for a week. The words are feeling more fluid when they come out. Not as it used to be, but I am in the process of recovering what has been lost. It is a long process.

Right now I am reading The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. That damn girl could write. And she did write. The journals are 624 pages not counting the notes and the index of the book. Two journals were even omitted--the two journals she kept nearest to the end of her life. One of them "went missing" and the other was destroyed by Ted Hughes, which is fascinating to me. Destroyed.

I'm hoping to get more and more X's as the days go by. Write a poem. Feel more myself. Write a poem. Feel more myself. We're going to Florida next week, and I want to make sure I'm still writing, even when my schedule is not what it normally is. I'm looking forward to the beach and the warm weather. It snowed today. I thought I was ready for that, but I was not ready for that. I never am.