What you’ll love next is waiting for you to notice it
Dispatch #37: 20 questions to wake you up
Good morning, friend.
I’m feeling spontaneous.
I’ve had what appears to be some kind of second wind since sending you my last missive a mere day ago. I have the urge to reach you in the morning, this morning, just as you’ve gotten up, & so I’m writing you at night, the night before, in a hopeful & private & sudden-ing way. I am wanting us, in this new morning together, to consider the poem On Living by Nazim Hikmet, a Turkish poet who “was reviled by the authorities in his homeland, his poems were banned and much of his life was spent behind prison walls.”1 He wrote poems while in prison. Poems about living. Not just living, but about cherishing living. I think of him writing poems in prison, meeting the day ahead – that stolen barricaded space – with agency, with cherishing…
In order to truly understand the stakes of the morning you are inside of (or perhaps you are opening this missive at night, the day already behind you, still there is a space ahead of you worth trying to understand – ) if you are to understand that empty space we call day or night or home or a life, you have to be open to feeling.
“You must grieve for this right now / – you have to feel this sorrow now – for the world must be loved this much / if you’re going to say ‘I lived.’” Grieve, Hikmet urges us, notice, understand, cherish.
& So I want to offer some questions to you, questions to be more fully alive inside, questions that are specific & abstract & wild & clunky & strange, questions that might guide your noticing this very day, or over the next hours, or just in the next moment… Life is noticing, after all. Really, what is life without noticing?
Where is the nearest flower?
Who last told you something intimate? Where were you? How do you recognize an intimacy as such when it is revealed?
What currently holds the place in your book?
Do shadows matter?
What color upsets you? What color feels friendly?
How might your next selfie be an ode? An ode to what exactly?
Whose thoughts do you think?
Think of someone you love. Make up a melody that might describe them. Sing it.
What happened inside you when you read the above Hikmet lines?
What is big to you but small to others?
What’s a lie you enjoy telling? Hearing?
Are your shoulders tight?
If the inanimate objects in your space had feelings how might they feel about you? What would they discuss? Would you be at the center or a peripheral matter?
What is the most important thing to you in this moment? Is it of your choosing or is it inherited?
What’s your favorite weather to walk in?
The last time you were courageous, what prompted it? What changed as a result?
Beautify the space around you by making one minor adjustment.
What time of day were you born? Might you mark it today? Not just by noticing the numbers on the clock, but by being aware of that hour’s texture & light? What might this hour say about you, your personality, your way?
Who will you thank next?
What feeling must be felt, what sentiment offered to another, what challenge walked toward…if you’re going to say ‘I lived…’?
Feel free to share your answers in the comments. I’d love to know what tickled you, what struck you, what’s pickling inside you, what trembled awake, what opened.
If this missive moved you (isn’t missive just the most wonderful old fashioned word?) consider forwarding this to a friend. If you’re still considering joining In Surreal Life’s unreasonably stacked January session, beat the crowd & sign up today. If you’re looking for a poetry mentorship experience that will blow your mind, my wife (my wife!) is offering one-on-one workshops (only 12 spots available) this December & January, first come first serve. If you want to participate in an auction for Direct Aid to Gaza, you can bid on a writing consultation with Mira Jacob, a book & personalized reading list from sam sax, a painting by Meena Hassan, & a free spot in (you guessed it) the January session of In Surreal Life.
“This earth will grow cold,” it certainly will, “like an empty walnut it will roll along in pitch-black space,” so how will you love it? It being everything. Not later but now. What you’ll love next is waiting for you to notice it. The uncharted beloved, our planet, that certain-to-be-empty-walnut is waiting. Good morning.
With ample maple syrup,
You did reach me first thing in my morning, a wonderful way to wake up. When I read the question about favourite weather to walk in, I thought of my usual answer, crisp autumn when I need a jacket but not a hat and the leaves pop against the grey. But what I heard in my mind’s ear was the snick snick snick of walking when the snow squeaks. Nice to have things about winter to look forward to.
Cozied up with this dispatch this New Years’ day afternoon. Family is watching the College Football semifinals, so I took the opportunity of the post–meal reprieve to sneak away some personal/screen time. Felt like the perfect chance to treat myself to some Freer Form.
The question/prompt, ‘What time of day were you born?’, made me smirk the most. Recounting the time of my initial debut, I finally realized why I may hate to feel rushed into anything. Born minutes to midnight, my mother being induced nearly five days early, I find the sensation of all things hurried to be pretty low on my love list. That said, noticing that truth may help my nerves to feel more at peace towards my next inevitable encounter with haste. Not sure if I’ll ever fall in love with the feeling, but perhaps I can discover more compassion for it.