"How are you, really?"

after Sean Patrick Mulroy

I'm learning how to name and say out loud
   what I feel
So, how am I, really?
  Afraid  
Lost
  Small
  Sad
with a dash of
       Joy
Because this life, and that life, and every brutal life in between, blazing under the relentless sun so hot it turns your skin cold.
Because it all feels so precarious, a spinning top ready to plummet off the counter.
Because if I really examine it all under a microscope, it might mean change is coming and not the kind you can count in dollars and cents. 
Because learning how to name and say it all out loud means facing it, looking in the half mirror.
Because as brutal as life is, joy finds a way through the sticks on the sidewalk. 

"How are you, really?"
"I'm okay."

Over on the Button Poetry FB page yesterday, they posted this prompt:

So, the poem above was my stab at that.

Lately, I keep coming across the same theme from different writer friends, all about noticing, seeing, saying the thing out loud. When I was asked the question “how are you, really?” I didn’t respond with the above, I named things that had happened to me that made me feel less than okay, instead of just saying how I was actually really feeling. And then today Elizabeth Gilbert shared a miracle of a piece that was all about saying and naming the thing you’re feeling out loud, and well, isn’t it funny how those constant nudges work out.

I am so good at glossing my shit over. I am so good at making light of damn near everything. Do not take me to a funeral because I promise I will make a weird comment and it will be at just the right time that you will laugh when you probably shouldn’t. I also tend to do this thing where I will tell you exactly what you need to hear which will sometimes make you cry (even harder than you already were) and then I’ll say something dumb or make a face to make you feel better. I am horrible at letting you sit in some shit by yourself. But for myself, I will sit in this shit all day everyday and never say a fucking word.

So much for letting the words fall out, amiright? (see there I go)

Anyway, I’m learning. Very slowly. Like the person who is walking in front of you at the grocery store kind of slow. Which may or may not include frustrating others. :)

I guess what I really mean to say is that lately, I have been afraid more often than not, and sad more often than not, with drops of joy in the mix. Humanness. I have also felt impatient and loving and creative and angry. Look at me with all the feelings!

I have also noticed the way certain parts of the floor in my work hallway feel like a funhouse, and how a tree looked like it was crying last week when I walked by - a single tear drop rolling from what could have been it’s eye, the hole was shaped in just the right way, and how when I looked down on a walk on Monday there was an arrangement of tiny branches on the concrete sidewalk that resembled a stick tree figure. Look at me with all the noticing!

I’m so grateful that I get to notice and to feel. Ai’s got nothing on my humanity. Or yours. It’s our joyous job as humans to look and see and touch and taste and FEEL. It would be great if we could remember that more often than not. It would be great if we could stop farming out our humanity to machines who are just imitating us. Okay, stepping off the ai soapbox now.

I hope you go write your own poetry or essays and that you notice something that makes you feel and that you name the feeling. Out loud.

Let’s keep our humanity alive - one Ent tree stick figure at a time.

Kind of reminds me of the Ents in Lord of The Rings. Pic by me.

Please feel free to use the prompt if you’d like. I think I’ll keep building with it. If you do, will you tag me so I can cheer you on?

Anyway, stay cool, stay hydrated, and stay creative. I’m glad you’re here.