Every which way

I’m sitting on my couch, before the day’s meetings and errands and editing (and no gardening as we’re on a flood warning with rain expected. My mind is going every which way:

So much to do these next couple days — meet students, prep for conference, plant stuff, write, prep for conference …

I am in a holding pattern for Making Things Happen. I don’t want to requery Prodigies until my dev editor has another shot at it (in June), I don’t know if I want to requery (this is now a word) Voyageurs at all (don’t know if it’s viable), can’t get re-written Apocalypse to the dev editor till June … when I send queries out, I get out of my funk because of this concept of possibility. I’m not really looking at any possibilities right now except for one big long shot.

I think I’m going to be rejected by TSA precheck. I don’t know why, unless it was those anti-war protests I participated in during the Gulf War or the guy I dated, equally long ago, whose father was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Or the fact that I’m a Quaker, or that I have a metal bar in my left leg that guarantees I’ll be patted down like a terrorist. The website says “Eligibility Determined” but does not give me a code number.

I’m pretty sure my last query out is going to be rejected. As I said, I shot big with that one.

I’m not feeling good about my writing lately. I hear this happens.

It’s just feeling like an unlucky day. My mood needs to be kicked in the butt, I’m sure, but not sure how to do that. The problem with feeling down is that feelings are so vivid that they take on the weight of truth.

Drunk on Possibilities

It’s Spring, and I’m drunk with the possibility of plants surviving the winter and popping up in my garden. I swoon at the possibility of seeds I plant growing up into lush leaves and succulent roots and fruits. I dream of my garden as I nurture it with manure and pull the weeds to prepare for the season.

It’s Spring, and I’m drunk with the possibility of getting my novel published. I send it to publishers and agents I haven’t sent it to before, envisioning the book’s acknowledgement page, and hoping beyond my experience of rejections. The thought of being published makes me tipsy.

It’s Spring, and I’m drunk with the possibility of finding my muse again, the inebriation of ludus, the joy of enjoying the energy of growth. My drunkenness makes me giggle, which makes people look at me sometimes.

In the words of Baudelaire, one should always be drunk.

Day 17 Reflection: Possibility

I am positively drunk with possibility. To be drunk on possibility is to see an opportunity and combine it with hope, and recognize the potential of good things.

A blank computer screen, a seed, a fresh journal, a job application — all of these whisper possibilities in us, possibilities of creation, growth, sustenance. All we have to do is act. And wait.

A possibility is not a probability. Not even hard work brings us a guarantee. We have to act to bring the possibility to fruition, and then we have to wait. And sometimes we’re disappointed, but then we hear the whisper of possibility again, and our essential optimism risks disappointment again for the sake of pursuing opportunity.

Chronic disappointment leads to a dulling of that sense of possibility. People get drunk on substances out of a sense of hopelessness. Those who have not been provided opportunity lose trust in possibility, wanting to believe only in sure things. The unscrupulous prey on these disenchanted people. Con artists guarantee riches to unsuspecting victims, taking advantage of their dreams, their drunkenness on possibilities. The sign of a con, in fact, is this promise to make the possibility a lucrative reality. Real life seldom promises fulfillment of our possibilities.

It’s too easy to chide people for being unrealistic, but believing in possibilities requires from all of us a certain recklessness, a certain desire to believe that a computer screen and keyboard will yield a novel and that a resume will get an interview. We all need to believe in possibilities, and we need to make more possibilities possible for those who face an impoverishment of opportunities.

Because being drunk on possibilities is the best inebriation.