Beginnings … Episode 1
The Only Way….
My class day routine was not fully set, thus my stridency upon arriving at work on that first January morning that workshop met. Catching the early commuter train that placed me in the office before most of my colleagues, I hunched down in my chair as the desktop PC booted itself up. My back was facing away from the entry of the cube, creating additional paranoia. Microsoft Word loaded up to ‘Document1.’, and I began typing in my work, written out in a journal in longhand. Stepping into the hallway, there was no one walking by - but that could change suddenly. The path to the printer station was too long to pace back and forth to make sure the coast was completely clear. I went back to my desk, sat down, and pushed the button. The printer icon flashed up for a second after print was clicked, 15 copies sent. My first piece was launched; hustling around two corners to reach the print tray, I hoped some 78-page job would not arrive first and clog the path.
Prayers answered, I collected the papers and stashed them in a folio under a notebook at my desk. Did I realize that I was elated? The morning thus far was a ten out of ten; Tuesday was progressing better than I might have hoped.
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Before any such class routine, there was routine. After graduating and moving on from a program in economics, I felt increasing inclinations toward writing.
I had chosen a title for a memoir, Intersections. Durable - the banner could mean many different things, so in my mind it opened numerous possibilities. Stifling in a southwestern suburb of Boston, journaling was not yielding much of a memoir. When too tired to put the pen to paper and not watching television, I would simply conjure themes and words while listening to music.
Shivers of hope yielded to swoons of faltering. Approaching early thirties, the purchased writer’s self-help books created a small tower on the side of my desk. Each foreword read, commendations noted, and selections perused, their cumulative wisdom lacked enough propulsion to move me far forward. Still and all, someday it would be there. A large manila envelope stuffed with a fully written and formatted manuscript. I often walked past a billboard that read, “The Only Way To Do Is To Begin.” Upon achieving that step, I simply couldn’t find the sign saying, “The Only Way To Finish is To Continue.”
My best-seller - Intersections - never came to be.
In optimization mathematics - as applied to economics – there is an ‘envelope theorem’ (not a manila one) stating that even though the exogenous (independent) variables may enter a maximum value function indirectly via the endogenous (unknown) variables, only the direct effects of change in these exogenous variables need be considered in solving for the equation. Since academic economics remained boxed up in storage in my apartment, the ‘how-to-do-it’ writing books and the commuter train into the Back Bay office served to shape my Boston world.
For how many weeks, or was it months, had a course catalogue sat next to the stack of writing books on my desk? The timespan became unimportant. One kinetic day it happened. Shakily keying in my credit card number and clicking submit, I was left to stare at a blinking message, ‘Processing…Do not press the back button on your browser.’ Three seconds, seven, ten seconds, what is happening? Then the confirmation appeared, a completed registration at the Boston Center for Adult Education, Poetry Workshop.
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I struggled to sit with myself in the short timespan as the term approached. While in school, I procrastinated on assignments in writing to the point of disdain in myself - or was it the other way around? My classmates surpassed me in content and tone during read-aloud in middle and high school. Having sought quantitative pursuits for at least ten years since, how would I navigate and cross over?
Poetry was not mathematical optimization. Poetry was not consultative business speech. Poetry was not the fragmented journaling that I tried to do. I did not help myself by perusing bookstore shelves for the answers. Locating an old anthology of poems from high school loaded more weight, before the first drafts-of-drafts could be backspaced over or removed from a pad and hit the floor.
It was a Sunday afternoon, fortunately occurring before the Super Bowl. The first Poetry Workshop would be the upcoming Tuesday - I sat at the desk with my repurposed journal opened to words, scribbles, and arrows.
I had been thinking about the piece for days. The work-related research that was my current engagement held me, albeit to a different limit. The workload and deadlines, I did stack myself against them all. This week though, more than a bit of daydreaming took place, and a small seed’s husk began to unravel.
That Sunday, as the pen began to hit paper again, I tried to put her in mind. Who was she? Not one person, but a mixture…a collage. Crushes heartfelt, broken or lost from time and ages long past. A teenager’s and a younger man’s feelings, undisturbed for years as study, parenthood, a tragically ended marriage, work, more work, and the surfacing sense that I ought to be someone else submerged them. I would lead off my first verses for Poetry Workshop writing about love.
Naïve, chin sincerely in front … not giving myself credit for such a quality.
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It was approaching 11:40 am on Tuesday, workshop began at noon. Time to activate the planned physical approach to get to class. I tucked the folio under my jacket …
TO BE CONTINUED in the NEXT twice-per-month share:
(scheduled for the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month, subject to occasional revision)
