Today’s post is a woem I wrote a week or so ago.
A woem is a poem of woe! And grumbles.
This is something we invented at McGrumblebug’s Whine Bar (a forum board disguised as a pub) in my Kitchen Table program.
See: My weekend got eaten by bears!
And, as it happens, today’s post also falls in the category of Accidental Poem.
See: The swooping of Fairy Godmothers. The one on invoking protection. The superpowers.
Anyway, let us woe!
A woem about wanting and regret.
I was able to experience being future-me today
for a moment
in that I learned the [thing I’d wanted] won’t arrive for five weeks
but if I’d only come in an hour before…
ah, then I could have had it tomorrow
but now I can’t
because I’m here but I didn’t set things up for being here
I’ve had nine days to take care of this
except I was scared
and I don’t even know/remember what exactly I was scared of
[this is familiar why is it familiar oh right
all pain is legitimate
and there is no such thing as “irrational fear”
it’s just that we don’t remember why the fear makes sense
but it does — it just does
it always does]
and even though I know this in the deep places
there is so much pain when I see how I’ve accidentally sabotaged future me
through wallowing in old hurt-pain-fear-avoidance-ball-droppery
and then I become her and it hurts
(but of course this isn’t true, it’s another pain-narrative…. what else is true?)
once I’m future-me…
then I look back with compassion because future me is always so damn sweet about the past
but oh (pain, again) I wish wish wish wish wish wish
I could be nicer to coming-in me
and set things up for her so that she could have sweetness from now
instead of always just giving back sweetness to then
so many things this past week that I didn’t do or say because it felt overwhelming or too big or out of proportion, and then this giant pile of half-done that I left for myself
tomorrow I am giving the day to compiling and depiling
the gifts to myself are in the stones
one day I will perceive the choices as they’re arriving
I will ring all the bells
right now I just want to plant tiny presents for tomorrow-me and next-week me so that she knows I prepared for her with love…
if I don’t or can’t, she’ll love me just as much anyway
or she’ll try
or she’ll practice the hardest practice, just for me
I am filled with the desire to do something marvelous for her
something marvelous
not out of guilt or shame or regret
just love
Next time.
Next time (tomorrow?) I will talk about how I am seeding things for me-who-is-arriving.
I will practice preparing for the voyage.
I will practice finding the useful.
In the meantime, I am here.
Play with me. And how the communal comment blanket fort works.
You can leave woems of your own. Or think about this stuff with me.
(Note! The brilliant thing about woems is they don’t have to be written especially well. Because the point is interacting with woe. Tiny or large, they all count. A woem about toe-stubbing is just as valid as a woem about deep grief and loss.)
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. It’s a process.
We take responsibility for what’s ours, we let everyone else have what’s theirs. We make this a safe space to practice through not giving advice and not telling each other what to do or how to feel.
That’s all! Love to the commenter mice, the Beloved Lurkers and anyone reading.
p.s. The class on the Art of Embarking (consciously and intentionally setting up experiences so that they’re supportive and fabulous) is today! Sign up for the recording, ebooklet and Chattery transcript.
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OH HAVI I LOVE YOU. This is so truthful. Your writing is always truthful, but somehow your woem-voice is that much more raw and less funny and and really makes me feel how human you are and how you go through the same pain and aaaaargh as the rest of us. Also, love for the pain and aaaaargh, and extra love for loving yourself in the midst of them.
Hi Havi-
I just love how you think. I loved your woem. I think I’ll write one.
You have an amazing voice. I feel as though I know you – I hope to be that clear on my blog/site someday. I’m pretty new at it, so giving myself the time to be me.
Hugs,
Katie
http://www.katiemcclain.com
I want to write my woe,
but I don’t want to write it publicly
because I have gotten in trouble for that before
and then there was much pain and misery
for past me.
That pain is now showing up again for present me.
And even though,
I might have had a breakthru
because of the pain,
still,
I would rather I were not feeling it.
Woem!
I’m scared –
heart-thumping, muscle-clenching scared –
because there’s this thing I have to do
and either I’ll fail
WHICH IS TERRIFYING
or I’ll succeed and that will be the moment
the long-awaited moment when I become perfect
a being of pure willpower
and always always force myself to give my all
one hundred and one per cent
for the rest of my life
WHICH IS EVEN MORE TERRIFYING
or I’ll have to accept that that will never happen
I won’t become perfect overnight
or ever
I won’t become a whole lot better overnight
I’ll just possibly become a tiny bit better tomorrow
and a tiny bit the next day
and a tiny bit worse the day after that
and this awful awful awfulness
this stuck self I can’t stand another moment
will have to be unstuck inch by inch
day by day
year by year
AND THAT’S THE MOST TERRIFYING OF ALL.
Ohmygod THANK YOU, Havi, for this space. I don’t know if you know what it means to me. 🙂
Oh the stuckness.
Being stuck for nine years in the exact same crap
And NOT EVEN NOTICING IT
Makes me afraid of not ever being destuckified in my life. Ever.*
Feeling guilty for “burdening” strangers on the Internet with my crap
Is even worse.
(And another pattern, as I am noticing just now.)
Out of this, a tiny seed of hope:
Frustration
And fear
Are the leaders
The pinprick signals
The hairline cracks
The subtle signs
That a revolution is coming
As soon as I can find
the pattern.
(To Hope! *clink of glasses*)
——————————
*(Not from this thing, anyway.
Previous experiences
should be conveniently ignored for the scope of this conversation,
say my fears.)
… … …
Yes, I wrote a poem with a footnote in it. So sue me. 😛
Loving thoughts to all of us with woems. Even me.
*Silent Retreats*
Up to here
Up the duff
Up the creek
🙁
on my lunch hour
i surf websites
b&bs in Key West
choclate stores in Taos
have an affair on Ashley madison
i want to escape and drink frozen drinks with tiny umbrellas
and not have to rinse out the blender
Claire P. You took my woem.
Oh well, let me try again:
I feel like shit.
Normally writing makes me feel better
but I’m sick of writing about my same stoopid problems
the self stoopid self-centered first-world crap
that I’m embarrassed to even be still thinking of
Lord, at least give me the grace
of testing me with new, original problems
each time
I hate mindfulness
i hate being engaged
I hate quinoa
i hate yoga
I hate paying attention to my breath
i hate everybody
i don’t wanna sleep, i don’t wanna be awake
i don’t wanna change my mind, i don’t wanna feel better
I want to eat some stinky cheese
I want to eat a medium rare dry aged steak
and drink expensive red wine
SCREW VEGETARIANS
i hate them, too.
my new dream is to sing Vivaldi on stage
in a full marilyn manson getup
at the poisson rouge, maybe
if they’ll let me
put me in a crazy costume and make me sing
i’ll take off my clothes and conclude with Handel
I can do that
What if my best years are over?
What if it’s all decline from here?
What if each effort to climb higher
finds me rolling downhill,
getting bruised, getting tired,
getting stuck?
staying stuck?
Maybe I’ll just look at the landscape
where I am.
Maybe I’ll dig in the dirt, pick dandelions,
make snow angels in the mud.
Yes.
Then I’ll follow that road,
the one that stretches out of sight,
and see where it leads.
WOEMS are upon us!
Oh the WOE of the truths we gather up in our little heads
oh the sadness of these days that should not have to be so sad
if only if only (sing it out loud like the song by the kooks)
if only if only,
i’d done this differently, i’d seen that otherwise
if only past-me had known what i knew today
but WOE!
she battled it out for me,
she did not give up,
she broke away from the bad
she created a chance for me, despite the odds stacking up unfavorably, despite the resistance all around
oh past me you were 22 and lost and you lost some battles you did well in the middle of all that pain.
now i feel lost again but i am sitting with it
in honor of you i am not letting this chance slip yet
in honor of you i am taking more time than you had to make this decision
you deferred and i sit
what would our future self want for us now?
what would she want for herself?
what qualities should reign for these years?
i wanted calm and time and family you, past-me, found that for me
in search of what should we head out back into the world?
future-me might be happy with adventure, sillyness, lightheartedness. with play and dance, and some safety, too.
more safety than there was, more adventure than there is now.
she would be so happy with adventure and challenge and people to learn from. she’d be grateful if i took my time now to think about how-will-it-feel instead of what-will-i-achieve.
she’d be wiser than we were at 22. she’d laugh and take her time with every person. she’d enjoy immensely working with people again. she’d always be grateful to me for finishing up what we started. she’d wish me well and want me to take my time.
she would like to feel competent and accomplished again.
she would fight for it and she would love an opportunity to start with that.
Here’s to you, future-me.
Thank you Havi and all your commenter mice. I LOVE the woems. @martinaj -I love the footnote. it made me laugh out loud.I’d been skimming the woems up to that point, because I don’t want to open the door to the woe that I have. I read it and I hear you! (I’m keeping an eyeout for the pinprick signals)
@Sara V: Thanks! It feels good to be heard (and to have one’s humor appreciated :D).
@simone – I would SO go to the Poisson Rouge to watch you sing opera – or hymns! – in a scary-crazy rock-out outfit. I’d jump up and down and clap and holler when you were done.
My Woem Is My Body.
Body rages, body shakes, body
sneaks up behind itself and goes
for the kneecaps.
Body decides overnight that oh,
we shall have back pain at L1, or maybe
no, at T3, at C4, at all at once.
Body weaves barbed wire into the shoulders
and up one side of the neck.
She makes a joke about wanting
to return to her goth days.
She loops electric current into the skull.
Body sticks needles into the sacrum
when we are washing dishes.
Anger resolution takes forever. Pain
chases me from the present into the past.
Body files her nails and watches.