I’m distracted. Constantly. There’s too much noise. In the neighbouring gardens, in the streets, in the city, in the world. Too many auditory inputs. And too many visual ones. I try to leave my mobile in the kitchen so I’m not constantly looking at it, nor getting the screen flashing family messages at me. I try to do Pilates for at least 15 minutes each afternoon, everything off, garden office darkened, mind blank.
Still distracted.
Writing a poem a day feels bitty, fragmented. I want to sit in front of a blank screen and see the pages fill up with new words, plots I can’t influence, things that just come out of nowhere and hit me.
Still distracted.
I want to write more polemic, but longer than poetry. I want to make more music.
There are 30 pages of hand-written material nestling in a journal I took to Crete with me last summer, still waiting to be transcribed. I can fit the frgaments together more easily on a screen.
My mind wanders to the possibility of writing a play. Then on to the possibility of writing a musical. Focus, I tell myself.
Still distracted.
The irony of the noise distraction is that I like loud music. Constantly. Its catharsis. Its politics. Its heart and its heartbeat. The world is missing a central heartbeat. It’s missing a heart.
Still distracted. Turn that energy into doing. Sew all the fragments into one piece, a tapestry. That’s what I need to do.