Now Playing: Music from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!

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I’ve found a recipe that works for me, though it’s not supper—sorry to subvert your expectations so early in.
It’s about writing. What else? LOL.

Act I: The Writing Recipe

Start working on a poem, song lyrics, a short story—whatever—when your heart is good and aching (you don’t have to work that up; it’s always simmering in the background).

You can both accept and grieve at the same time.
You can say “I’m fine” and still hold fire in your palm, because both are true.

Do it at night, when you’re meant to be sleeping.
Wake up early as balls—really, Word Raccoon? —and work some more.

Squeeze more time out of the tube by thinking about the piece while you go about your business.

Every image from childhood, every inequity you never questioned before, every societal ail—
is fair fodder for poetry.
Wring it all, babe.
Just don’t name names.

Act II: Pop Culture, Pressure, and Jim Jones

Does the horror of Jim Jones live in your imagination from that miniseries you once saw?
Write him into a song—repentant, stuck bartending for eternity.
(Actually, maybe that one should be a poem.)

Anything is material.
I’ve learned to string Truth so thin it’s floss.
It cuts the pain for the receiver.

Truth. Beauty. Freedom. Love.
The bohemian’s cry. The four horsemen of what mattered.
Who knew I’d become just as enamored of those things?

Makes me feel deep and superficial all at once.
Which… fair.
(You really ought to watch Moulin Rouge!)

The current poem I’m working on is tentatively titled Once You Pop.
It’s about pop culture—can you tell?
That’s 100% why I’m writing this so early while it buzzes through my brain.

Act III: A Message from Word Raccoon

Anyway, Word Raccoon has a message for you today:

You don’t have to be extraordinary, or uber talented, wealthy, or beautiful to be worthy of being seen or heard.
Because those who are asking you to be usually aren’t either.
Which is why they’re demanding it of you.
Pr*cks.

But also:
If you are those things, you are not more worthy of being seen or heard than those who are not.

That may seem like bottom-shelf thoughts—accessible to any wandering toddler—
but until you get past those,
you’re not going to be able to hear the muse (whatever that is for you) very well anyway.
So best to get them out of the way.

Society makes this nasty net of expectations.
Damned if you do. As much so if you don’t.
I’ve been just as caught in the trap as anyone.

But the universe hands me a lifeline just when I need it, it seems.
Or maybe I’m just good at seeing truth when I need it most.

Act IV: Becoming Myself (with Celia Foote, No Less)

I was in a book discussion once, complaining about how Celia Foote’s husband in The Help
didn’t help his kooky wife fit in with the other women so she’d be more comfortable.

And the discussion leader said:
Maybe he liked that his wife was different from everyone else.
Maybe he didn’t want her to change.

That stopped me cold.
I took a step closer to myself that day.

It would be a few more years before I discovered poetry and Word Raccoon.
(Well. You were here for that.)

Act V: Conformity Wears Many Costumes

Maybe you don’t see the connection between self-acceptance and pop culture.
Maybe I’m not making the case strongly enough.

But here’s what I’m trying to say:

Being steeped in pop culture—or rejecting it entirely—
can both become ways to mask the same thing.

The pressure.
The expectation.
Conform (either way) or perish.

Or just a way to showcase elitism:
“Oh, I don’t have to stoop to pop culture.”
(You know I love you, but I just can’t. Oy with the Poodles, but not as cute.)

Let’s not, and say we did.

Final Act: Kurt, Dresses, and Drafts at 4 AM

And lest you say I’m too old to be concerned about such things,
I dare you to look in the mirror, Sweetie.

We’re here for such a short time, really, kiddies.

As Kurt Vonnegut said,

“G-D it, babies, you’ve got to be kind!”

Why do I love that man so much?
I mean, he was pretty much allergic to adding rounded female characters to his novels, and yet…
Maybe it’s the Indiana connection— John Green lives here, too. (Still waiting on that call, Johnny G!)

Or maybe fairness makes me say he had some profound, poignant, and entertaining things to say.
And just because he was a man of his time doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate those things
while wishing for more from him.
(BTW, had lunch with a friend today and we talked about Vonnegut and these very issues and more.)

Also: Word Raccoon demanded I wear a dress and hat today—
I had jeans and my new Mother’s Day shirt laid out,
but WR won.
And it was fun to wear them after all.

I have no idea where this all came from,
except it’s 4:30 in the morning and my mind was full and now it’s not.

Epilogue: Tea, Drum Solo, and Four Drafts

How about we ask Word Raccoon for a drum solo?

Or maybe just have a nice herbal cup of tea
so we can drift off to sleep until the alarm blows.

Come What May.

P.S. I wrote four poems today (drafts, obv.), worked on my novel, and wrote this.
I’m still organizing my poems, and just moving them around shows me areas that need improving.
I had no clue poetry could make me so happy.