Of Past To Present (not a poem)
During my pockets of nothingness, I think about people and
events both past and present that either directly or indirectly affected my
life in some way. I can easily center on the negative since for some reason it’s
easier but this time I focus on the positive. Even the negative, although at
the time I felt had no good side to it, can later on be used to spin a positive.
Like many that feel
that sometimes not having the world at your disposal can push you or mold you
into something good, I too believe that because I didn’t have the text book
upbringing or social life that it made me more sensitive and porous to my
surroundings. I guess on the flipside of that it has also been a stumbling
block because I am overly sensitive and have a hard time coloring within the
lines of normal.
I don’t need
photographs of people and places that have touched me in some way. I can still
see in my mind and recall names of classmates in grade school through high
school and teachers that inspired me and made my life hell. Most of my English
teachers from 6th grade up saw in me great writing potential. I
think about them and wonder if they are still alive because I was too negative
and dark back then to thank them and because now even though I am far from
being a well- known author, because of a sudden shift in dynamics in my life; I
am being well read.
I think about my friends
who I constantly bothered to read my stories and my poems, in high school and
at most of my jobs. Everything I wrote back then I swore was going to be the
one that was going to pull me from obscurity to being rich and famous. Nothing
I wrote back then went anywhere and I was way too scared to release my thoughts
but I laugh now because I didn’t have the guts or felt that anyone would
understand anything I wrote.
One of my teachers
who zoned in on my writing skill said something very profound to me which I
didn’t understand then but I do now. She said that through experience and
maturity that my writing will flourish. I took that back then as I was too
young to write anything substantial because I lacked experience. I never
stopped writing just stopped trying to be rich and famous and throughout the
years I heard her words in my ears. When I was in my forties I understood. Now
in my fifties, I understand so much more.
I think if it were
not for the internet and a shift in my life that I would still be obscure and
writing just for me. Prior to 1999 I hated computers and went out of my way not
to be part of that scene, mostly out of fear of failure. Once I got familiar and
comfortable on the computer, it opened up a whole new world. I have met and got
to talk with people from countries I only heard and read about. I got to meet and
know some really nice people and some not so nice ones but no matter which
angle you look at it; it all layered in experience and material for a majority
of my poems and stories. How can someone who has touched you somehow,
negatively or positively, not bleed through what you write about?