February - Self Love Means Kicking Yourself Out

By Molly Field

The Peevish Penman prompt for February (really? I'm so sorry about all that alliteration -- I'm slaying myself over here ... ahhh, someone give me some air) is revolving  around:

Love. 

Come back!

I have chocolate!

I lied.


I ate it. It was good. Sorry. Here's the wrapper. Ghardelli.

Moving on, nothing to see here. Oh go on! What I just wrote above does NOT remind you of "This Is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams about the plums. That was a love note.  

♥ ♥ ♥

We are writing about Love and how we create and write in the face of it... whether that face be a marriage, a new relationship, or with our loved ones around.

Because I am elegant weird, I am going to write about it today in terms of how we show ourselves and our writing love in one simple step: break up with yourself. Show yourself the door and don't come back until you've had time to think about what this relationship with your book or your writing or your blog or your art means to you! You better learn something about how you've been treating that book, art, blog or writing. And when you're ready, show yourself.

And bring chocolate. 

♥ ♥ ♥

This will all make sense shortly, but in the meantime, indulge me as I provide the backstory: so my household has seen its share of airborne illnesses the last few weeks. I will spare you the amoebic details, but the fact of the matter is that since Christmas, I've not spent one week at home without one of my three sons home sick with me or home sick on his own. What this has done for my social life: you don'twannaknow. I've had the frequent displeasure of canceling a lunch four weeks in a row. With the same person. Yes, we're still friends.

I'm back to feeling 100% now, so please stay the hell away from me.

Don't worry, I'll get back to love. Gimme a minute. 

I had an epiphany whilst in the throes of a bout and while it might seem rather pedestrian, it can't be ignored: life is for living and for me (and maybe you?) to be a successful (whatever that means -- it's all subjective, so play nice) writer requires we get the hell out. Ironically, I say all this at risk of sounding myopic.

Surely observations and insights from disabled or impaired people are extremely valuable, but for the overwhelming majority of the able-bodied, we must kick ourselves out of our relationships and dependencies with the everyday and kick up the dust in our own lives, and not let that door hit us on our way out if we are truly going to see results.

We must unfriend ourselves from Facebook, unfollow ourselves from Twitter and unwhatever ourselves from whatever other social media engine within which we frequently engage if we are to bring value to ourselves, our craft, and our readers.

I once challenged a writer to describe an approach to a barn door in 500 words. She couldn't. She did it in 300, which is good, because this writer has limitations when it comes to descriptions. Me? I love them, I get swept up in them and they are like poetry chocolate to me.

We must get out and step into the sunshine, squinting our eyes from its sobering glare in the dead of winter, bracing ourselves against the biting, life-affirming chill and wind which buffets our bodies and whips through our souls. We must take a walk to the pond near our house and when we arrive, we must take off our leather glove, the one with the cashmere liner and touch the massive alabaster rock; and run our chapped index finger along its veins of black coal and crushed quartz as our eyes follow the lines and then wander to the park bench with the flaking paint and rusty legs, barely making purchase of the nails and screws which fasten it to the concrete platform.

We must walk past the bakery with warm and salty aromas of fresh Italian bread, crusty and golden on the outside and downy soft on the inside, the air bubbles inviting our nubby and chilled hands to grab a chunk and devour it; when it's fresh-from-the-oven warm, it tastes better than with any amount of butter on it and the smell alone is an elixir to our souls.

We must pack up our cameras and make sure the batteries are ready. We must bundle up in our trusty pea coats to get into our old cars with seats of faded leather. Turn the key and wait for the engine to start, but turn off the blowers with their frigid air because the crank case isn't warm yet.

We must drive to the old weatherworn and abandoned barn in the countryside, listen to classic songs from Frank Sinatra or Doris Day on our way; keeping that timeless appeal so we transcend the moment in which we exist: 2013, to imagine the world we seek: 1958, so we can embody that lonely farm girl whose eyes linger a little too long on the moon and whose mind tickles the memories of her moments in that barn, with her beau now at bootcamp in Georgia.

We must go to fondue dinner with loved ones during "Restaurant Week," a local week-long program born from post-9/11 sadness and fearful diners when restaurants were shuttering hourly. We must laugh despite our reluctantly transplanted waiter named Nigel who was charming but inattentive. We must kindly ask his peers for water, use our debit cards to pay the check, and hesitantly walk to the car together, wondering what we will do next and then decide, as we approach the interstate sign, with Donna Summer playing in the background, chant, "Go north or go home!" take the onramp to the city, giggle at our spontaneity and feel like teenagers again for our collective recklessness. We must park the minivan, pretend it's one of our parents' car and venture out into the vibrant, windy and pulsing city, seeking tickets to a hockey game already in progress only to discover that once we pass the security check and the baggage search that that game is sold out. But we must decide together undaunted, to go to a bar around the corner, open a tab, have a beer and watch the game on plasmas strung along the walls. See the bartendress with four-inch hoop sparkly earrings scan her smartphone and watch the bar-back in the black longshoreman's knit cap restock the frosted pint glasses; his muscles stretch and contract beneath his t-shirt's rolled up sleeves. We must turn and have no choice but to watch an older man who confessed he was on painkillers and too much beer, dance with a sweet young thing fifteen years his junior, only to see him slow down a bit, get a little too dizzy and then see him maintain his dignity as he surrenders to his age and to the night as he zips up his hoody, walks up the steps and bids the bar goodnight.

We must do these things. We must get out of our own way, even in the face of love: lovers will understand when we need to do these things, to get away. If they are worth having around, they will be there when we get back.

The fact of the matter is that if I love myself, I need to break-up with myself and kick myself out of social media, and make myself take me out on a date, or for a drive, or for a walk, without the computer but only with my eyes and my memory. Same goes for my writing, my art. The only way to get anything gritty, good and new for my work and for my soul is to turn away from what I already know and look boldly into what I see out there.

Take a late-night romantic ride in a crowded car with some coeds here:
http://mollyfielddotcom.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/friday-fiction-6-the-car-ride-dream/

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