I have always loved poetry. The song of it. The lines and stanzas. The irregular patterns. The arrhythmia of thought. The stoic voices of those poets I have loved hearing echo off the wind.
But I’ve never studied poetry in depth beyond the surface of what a poem is, what rhyme is. I took a class in Boston once, and loved it, but the exploration stopped there. I’ve never dug deep enough to really understand the roots of the forms poetry can take, have never really looked under the hood and tried to understand its workings. Sometimes, it seems to me, it doesn’t even have workings. A poem can be nothing more complex than an exhale on the page. Don’t be fooled — such an exhale can ripple into gusts of wind, and later a hurricane. But still, there are things to understand.
I want to learn.
I’ve never finished nor published a novel. I’ve written extensively over the years: articles, columns, blog posts, essays, rambling emails, scraps of social media stints, letters, scripts, guides, newsletters, even some initial drafts of book manuscripts. But I’ve never finished a full-length book, nor published one, even the one I’ve been working on for more than a decade. I don’t yet know how to format a novel for publishing. I don’t yet know the feeling to see something come from within and land into the light of physical reality. I see a path now, but there’s more to know.
I want to learn.
I love the woods. Grew up with a small forest in my back yard. Trees everywhere. A sea of pine needles. Trails and paths that led to pits and home-like bundles of oaks and pines and birch, of bushes and shrubs. But I’ve rarely hiked, have never explored the mountains or rocky sea trails I’ve rarely taken my ears back to the song of loss and growth from the Earth. I don’t know how to navigate terrains or track animals or read star paths or understand what water is trying to say. This comes, I feel, in listening, or hearing with the eyes.
I want to learn.
The sea is my blood. Born near it. Grew up near it. The salt of it, of the water and the air, calls to me often. I see it likewise, visit frequently. For that I’m grateful. Yet there’s something about the currents, the sea, the tides, the ocean, the ripples. Something speaks to me, yet I don’t know what that is. Something in it, a voice, like the conch-shell echo, speaking something you remember but don’t. There’s a way to, a method to hear and understand that call of the sea.
I want to learn.
I’ve struggled with consistency when working on practices or projects or novels or writings or other creative endeavors, yet I know consistency is among the most important impacts of this. I’ve struggled with self discipline, though I know there are underlying reasons (see shadow-talk above). I know there are ways to move beyond the wall of resistance and allow these things to flow naturally. I want to know what it’s like to consistently practice without fail (and by fail I mean to stop practicing).
I want to learn.
I’ve become, almost by accident, a student of spiritual practice in my adult years. Meditation. Buddhism and mindfulness. Energy work. Reiki. Shamanic/magical exploration. Sound healing. Some “new age” study. Much of this has been self-study, experiential work, yet a rather important portion has been guided. I’m humbled by what I’ve experienced, grateful for the guides and teachers I’ve encountered. But I know there is so much more to understand from my own depths, from inner mechanisms to intuitive landscapes.
I want to learn.
And so here, where there is no starting line, where there is no finish line, where there is no competition, where there is no holding, where there is no preventing, where resistance is only a concept, where fear lies in the wind wondering if it can breathe — we begin here. We begin to seek. We begin to trek.
In small poems, however cringe-worthy in form.
In novel-pages, as-yet written.
In journal pages, un-scribbled and waiting.
In earth-and-sea, however unfamiliar.
In inner-depths, however frightening.
Embark. Begin again. Always begin again.
The learning never ends, and there is no ideal time to start, no realistic time to end. It simply begins again.
Time to learn.
To learn.
Matt B. Perkins is a writer and editor from Massachusetts. He is currently working on a new novel and developing several creative and writing-based projects. Connect with him on Twitter or Instagram, or get the latest updates by signing up for his newsletter.
