What happens to the words we never say? I’m trying to be understood and all my words seem far too small today to form anything close to good.
A tiny thought soon becomes overwhelmed by the magnitude of the sea so that I will no longer feel compelled to pour these words right out of me.
Uninspired, then soon unmotivated I dam the river with dead wood; never to see this thought celebrated or form anything close to good.
Not quite the dreaded writer’s block. Just the idea that everything can feel inconsequential, shouting into the void. At the time of writing this, I feel like I have read 100 uninspired poems that trigger nothing in me. I purged them from my ‘to-be-read’ folder. At other times, I would have found something within each of them that may have given me some new formation of ideas.
I’ll not stop looking, though. But that’s a different poem.
“my words seem far too small” is linked to the author Jae Rose. I have a feeling I found the first line from elsewhere, too, but I no longer recall where.
No movement, no promise Woke up tired again The sky has gone grey Dead and uninspired
Today I’m feeling:
In the morning I was feeling pretty happy. We had a Songkran ceremony blessing the director (or he was blessing us, I don’t know) and folks were having fun splashing water around. I got home around midday and, despite three coffees, I’m starting to feel sleepy as these early mornings are catching up with me already. I must resist the urge to sleep though.
Today I’m grateful for:
My former teenage self for reading books. For some reason, I never really thought of myself as a reader. When I was young it took me a long time to finish a book. On going through my diaries from 1983 and 1984 though I can see that I was reading a lot more than I thought. I can even remember the feeling of reading certain books though the story has long gone. I always saw my mum reading so I guess that influenced me more than I realised too. I surprise myself – when I think about it.
The best thing about today was:
Feeling pretty good at school with all the other teachers for the ceremony. I was able to do some online searching for lesson ideas on my phone whilst they did all the Thai speeches. The atmosphere was pretty positive despite the heat. My shirt was wet with sweat even just sitting still.
What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?
This was actually last night though the result was this morning. Last night was the roughest storm so far and it ripped up another sheet of our roof over the entertainment area. It rained so hard and heavily that the gutters overflowed and in the garage, the water was overflowing into the underside of the roofing though thankfully not into the rooms (from what I could tell anyway). There were even hailstones pounding against the windows. I found the damaged roof this morning and wondering how we can fix this. There’s nothing much that can be done about the weather except to know that it will happen again one day. Thankfully not much was damaged that hadn’t already been in last week’s storm.
Something I learned today?
I watched a video arguing that English shouldn’t be compulsory in Japanese schools because very few students succeed in learning enough of it. They were arguing that it wastes time for those students who are more interested in learning something else. It made me wonder about Thailand. My friend Fui, who I often see in House, always talks about education here. He has sent three of his four kids overseas to study knowing just how bad it is here. He agrees that students should be failed and be held back a year as other countries do rather than just passing everyone. Thailand must look good on paper but the only people it is fooling is themselves.
What is going well in my life right now?
In general, I can’t, or shouldn’t complain except right now I don’t feel particularly enthused about anything much. That will change I’m sure. So, really, everything is going well. I’m very lucky.
Pavlov’s fish. I took this picture because these fish are in the pond outside the cafe at school. Were they there before? I don’t remember. Their reaction to me leaning over to take a picture was to beg for food. Sorry fish.
1994ever 