Last night I told myself the thing I'd drafted wasn't a poem: Real poems take long stressful craft sessions, and are serious, and this one entertained me so vastly I read it aloud several times laughing. Then I invented excuses for it: "It's kind of a theater piece," or "You could work on this so it'd be in couplets and then it'd be good," & c. Told myself everything in the world except, "Hey, you just drafted a 60-line poem -- that alone is pretty great; congratulations."
Making some kind of trivial mistake ("What'd I come in here to get? Can't remember") I have been catching myself calling myself "Stupid!" "What a dodo-brain," "Nobody else would be so incompetent," etc.
Have I sat myself down today and said, "You rock! You're doing a pretty good job with your life. You are so well-read, so together, and a creative artist! What discipline, what fire," and so on? I've got a good mind. Why am I not kind to it -- as kind and generous as it has been to me?
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Is it because as women, we are trained to be self-deprecating? I wonder if guys have the same internal dialogue. They are taught to boast in conversation patterns, but what are they really thinking?
ReplyDeleteI do this too. Every accomplishment that seemed grand when I hadn't achieved suddenly becomes - less. Hmmmmm.
Hear hear!
ReplyDeleteDon't you find that the poems that come to us fast are full of magic? I think so!