Ever since I could remember, I’ve scribbled on blank pages and had a collection of notebooks. I received my first journal when I was four or five. I still have it tucked away on my bookshelf—bound between silver sparkles with a lock and key to secure it. Yellow crayon scribbles, loopy letters, and learning how to write my name were the first few things that filled the pages. That was the first of many journals I’d have. I had journals with snowflakes and pink and fuzzy covers, leather journals from Barnes and Noble, and moleskins. I am convinced that this little sparkly diary began a revolution inside of me. One of words, ideas, and creativity. It sparked something that I wouldn’t even begin to understand was so fragile and important until I grew into adulthood and realized that I had misplaced it. As a teenager and then adult, like all of us, I layered on the heavy coats of the ‘real world’ and that spark of imagination would diminish into a dull ache in my heart.
In her book poemcrazy Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge writes about how psychologist Carl Jung suggests “When we are about seven we separate from and then bury or repress whatever parts of us don’t seem to be acceptable in the world around us. According to Carl Jung, these unacceptable parts become our shadow.”
When I write this, the November sun is coming in through my south-facing window, harsh and warm. My shadow appears on the floor behind me. I wonder about the parts of me that I hid crossing over into my seventh year and then onward. I remember when I was in elementary school, struggling with words and trying to learn how to read was challenging because of my dyslexia. Over the next twenty years, I would learn to be a “good girl”, who played by the rules, always doing the right thing. My creativity would be there, but I would hide it. I was told I couldn’t be a writer until I learned how to spell correctly, with no errors. I worked hard, stayed quiet, and didn’t say what was on my mind in difficult situations because it might make things worse. I wrote many words in my green daisy notebook then blacked them out with Sharpie in case anyone who may read through it wouldn’t find anything. I would be a strong and mighty people pleaser, adjusting my moves to make others happy.
I couldn’t put a label on it then, but my shadow self was always with me, untamed during my teenage years. There was a constant pull between doing what I knew was acceptable and going toward my dreams. I’m not writing this because I had a bad childhood. The opposite is true, actually. But the more of myself I hid in my shadow, the more hunger for wonder I had.
Wooldridge writes “I feel that physical urge deep inside my torso. I’ve been ignoring it for a long time but part of me is saying that it will be easier to address it, write, and give this urge what it wants than to ignore it anymore. Stop trying to people please, just let yourself have this moment.”
I feel that same physical urge inside me. It won’t go away. I know it is my shadow, coaxing me to pay attention to it again at 27.
When my husband and I were on our honeymoon, we made a spontaneous stop at a bookstore in Port Angles. Washington, called Port News and Books. When we were at the seaside bookshop, I picked up the book poemcrazy, a small blue notebook with golden stars and a moon on the cover, and a bright pink ink pen. During the latter half of our trip, I started to take note of words I felt in the air. Every time I heard a word I liked I would write it down. And it became a practice.
Since September, every time I feel a spark of energy in the room, I take out the notebook with stars and a moon on the cover, and I write poetry — imperfect poetry, the rough words, and the cliche metaphors. I go against all the instincts I have developed over the past twenty years to hide this part of myself.
I write no good, very bad poetry.
My shadow jumps up and down with glee at this. She loves that there are inky scribbles that fill the first half of my notebook. I want to fill this whole notebook with words of attention. I want to capture the magic I see and feel in the atmosphere. I want to put poems to these feelings.
Wooldridge writes about this physical urge and the feeling of electricity in the air as poetry, too. (So I know I’m not going crazy over here.)
“I sometimes think poems come from electricity in the air, a hum inside, impulses we can feel in our body,” says Wooldridge. “When I sense an electrical charge around a person, event, or place, I know there’s a poem in it, waiting for words. Poems are often about something so important to us we can feel the need to write as a physical urge.”
When I go out on walks, to the grocery store, or work in the office, I make sure to take my notebook with me. My pocket is full of stars. I feel poetry when I am out and about, paying attention, and letting myself be fully in the moment instead of caught up in worries, pleasing, and the rush of to-dos.
But don’t misunderstand. These poems are not good. They are not even close to having rhythm, meter, or rhymes. They are somewhat cliche and rough… anything but perfect. But gosh this is the ache I’ve been after. Anyway, I firmly believe that you can’t get to the poetry that moves people until you write through the shit, anyway.
The good girl in me cringes as I write this. She crosses her fingers that I don’t press send on this email or share any of my terrible poems. Instead, she wants me to retreat back to writing in the hidden places where no one can see — inside the closed covered of my notebooks I hid in dresser drawers. She wants me to be quiet and simple so everyone will like me. She doesn’t want me to be vulnerable so I don’t get hurt. But my shadow self gives me a gentle nudge forward. “People can think you are weird,” she says. “But look how you feel… more free.”