"She loved nothing more than what she had"
Rita Dove muses on a vixen. I suggest we lower the bar.
May we protect all the layers inside her and inside us where peace lays down endless sediment.
Crazy Quilt with Animals by Florence Elizabeth Marvin, 1886
Fox
by Rita Dove
She knew what
she was and so
was capable
of anything
anyone
could imagine.
She loved what
she was, there
for the taking,
imagine.
She imagined
nothing.
She loved
nothing more
than what she had,
which was enough
for her,
which was more
than any man
could handle.
from American Smooth: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.
Creative Invitations
I often tell my writing coaching clients that if they want to write more, they must lower the bar. Not the bar of “truly felt” or “urgent to express.” Not the bars of honesty, self-scrutiny, intensity, yearning, truth, hunger, finding the must-be-said thing.
But lowering two specific bars will help a lot: 1) the compulsion to be pleasing to others and 2) the pressure to be writing wonderfully, quite a lot.
Being pleasing to others is a bar of production capitalism: we could all lower it. We are taught this longing to be proud, to be liked, to be admired, to make something that others will buy. I often want my sentences to be liked, loved even, by everyone. What futility!
The eagerness for what’s on the page to be —p l e a s i n g— can be instilled in us as insecurity very early by having our words, an expression of our essence, graded on an A to F scale.
We need to please no one besides ourselves with our writing, just as we need to please no one with our expression, our looks, our clothes, our sexiness, our occupation, our vision for our lives, our adult becoming. Our writing or art must simply exist, be given space and time, and be treated with love, like a close friend. Our writing or art, our creativity, can occupy a place in us that we like to visit. It can be our favorite place to go. Developing that friendship can take a long time, and it is worth it.The next bar to lower is the bar of writing wonderfully quite a lot (or, impossible expectations.) One way of lowering this bar is to restrain or contain the size and form. Consent is important here. You can break a logjam or block by saying to yourself, you are not even allowed to write perfectly or a lot. No! You may not, I forbid it! Then, give yourself small permissions. You are allowed to write just a little in a mediocre way. Feel okay? Okay! Give yourself a little more permission.
So, today’s invitation: imagine you are this Fox that Rita Dove writes of. Bring yourself into her body, her eyes, her underbrush. Write in her voice. Write in three lines. Write in thirteen to twenty-three words. Use some verbs. Nothing special. What does she see, eat, feel, know, do?
Post what you write in the comments!