Choices, Cherries, Notes to Myself

Choices, Choices, Choices: Time to think about selecting the three poems I want to make eleven copies of & bring to my Provincetown workshop. I have a strong sense of what I want from this workshop, so instead of picking out the poems that need the most work, I want to bring poems that feel like they contain the road signs to where I'm going. Or want to be going. Or should oughta be going. I don't want to waste the week dinking around repairing lines and stanzas -- I want to nudge my process at a deeper level. (That sounds kind of dirty, doesn't it?)

I will probably bring really new work. April and newer. Although I'll also print out a bunch of other poems too, just in case I get ideas about what to do with them.

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Bad Poet No Donut: I think I'm skipping the first night of IU Writers' Conference readings. One of my cat sitters is stopping by tomorrow evening so I can show her the routine & where everything is, and I need to clean house enough that she can find the cats at least; I desperately need to do some laundry; I need to do bills; and if I'm going to send the chapbook ms. out to one more contest before I leave (& since it's a June 30 deadline and I don't get back until the evening of the 26th, it's before I leave or never) I really need to dink around with that tonight too. Tonight's reading is Susan Gubar & Scott Sanders, both writers I admire greatly, but I just have so much to do.

Plus I don't really feel like putting pants on and leaving the house.

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Rain: The green here is so green this year. I've been told it is a good year for fruit, as we've had lots of rain and missed our usual late freeze. I was at a friend's house Friday evening and picked several cherries from her cherry tree. I never had cherries straight off the tree before. They were sour and delicious, like the taste of a broken heart that's so healed-over it's almost fun to poke at it now and then.

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Reminder to self: shit or get off the po(e)t.

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Choices, Choices, Choices Part 2: Also need to pick out books to take along. Books to read on the plane and in the airport and on the ferry, two or three books of poetry to dig into throughout the week in case I need some inspiration, and maybe something light to wind down with before I fall asleep at night. Reminder to self: you always end up buying books there because you're a sucker for sweet little independent bookstores, so don't take as many as you think you need.

Also putting some new music on my ipod and planning a Provincetown playlist. When I first vacationed there in 2001, I woke up the first morning to brilliant sun and that clear, intense Cape light; turned on the clock radio and Shawn Colvin's song "Whole New You" filled the room. That's been my Provincetown song ever since.

You have the right to get down on your knees
you have the right to make yourself believe
you don't know my name
but I don't care
you can do it
cuz you have the right

To shake the loneliness and shine the light
take all your tears save 'em for a rainy night
go and wish on every star that's fallen
shake your head and wonder when it's all too good to be true
like a whole new you

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One week! One week.