The weather has been changing slowly. And honestly, the rainy season is already upon us, with its loud rain soaked beauty. Some evenings are bathed with this cool that wafts around tree barks, that stalks into your room and wraps itself around you as you fall asleep.
It is so nice.
And, as someone who generally loves the blue haze of a nice harmattan afternoon, I have oddly been enjoying the recent weather. It was getting too hot some weeks back (Ha-ha)
But really, let’s go straight into what this piece is really about. A while ago, I came to realize that I am someone who is very oddly inspired by how the weather feels. I mean, creatively.
There is something profound about just being able to create the texture of how a story feels by writing very simple details like the weather.
Describing the brilliant yellow light of a sunny day, or the dew-soaked smell of an early morning. I just love it. I love writers who are able to do this, and I also love being able to do it as well in my own writing, just for the fun of it.
I think that in a way, writing this way connects us to a deep sense of nature, and our place in the world. And to our relation with all of the other things that exist around us.
Considering simple things like lighting, shape, texture, mood, even the ambient temperature (Ha-ha), it just feels so magical.
And it is really on brand because when I first started writing poetry as a teenager, one of my earliest ones was about the bright June sun of a long holiday. Just how sweet it is. How warm and encompassing.
I often wonder if describing these simple pleasures opens us up to a certain kind of innocence that is so deeply felt in childhood. When the whole world appears like a beautiful thing to be discovered out in front of us.
When it feels like with a bright sun outside, there is a whole day to be enjoyed. A whole life and world out there for us to lose ourselves in, and be joyful.
SOME RECENT UPDATES
A small confession, it has been some weeks since I wrote a poem that I actually like.
This happens, so I am not very worried about it.
I am not worried about it because it isn’t like that time when I wasn’t even enjoying reading poetry, or the idea of poetry. I just thought the whole art form was just … okay.
I think this time, I have just been a little bit busy figuring out other things for the calm, meditative headspace that poetry requires. It’s alright though, as a friend of mine said, poetry will wait for you. It will still be there when you get back, it will still be waiting for you when you are ready.
But, I have read some really nice poetry this month. One of them is by this poet Pascale Petit who wrote this poem titled Mama Amazonica, I found to be so precise, but so heart rending.
I also found this essay reviewing a poetry collection by the Nigerian poet, Tolu Oloruntoba. I actually found out about him some time last year, but I didn’t read much of his poetry. And then, in the past week, I read this review of his latest collection titled, Each One a Furnace, and saw excerpts from his poetry. And can I say I felt all of the stirrings of a good poem in me?
Can I say that?
Cuz I have literally said it, ha-ha.
Anyways, it was a great poem. And I will be looking through some of his other work, definitely. Because it just feels like it would bring me to a very different, and new aspect of being human. And just, emotions and being alive. I quite like that.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think I can ever be done with poetry, it reminds me too much of the many things that I haven’t experienced yet, the many ideas and feelings that I haven’t explored. I want that, and I want to capture it in beautiful verse. I want to see how others have captured it in beautiful verse.
TRYING TO REMEMBER
In all of the noise in the world, it is hard to remember the artistic and just human reasons why you decided to write in the first place. But I always try to remember.
Art, poetry, gave me a language to say things that I found hard to express. Not just to others, but to myself as well.
I have used art to explore the seasons changing in my life. To catalogue the highs and the lows, to comfort myself in loneliness, to protect my mental health. To encourage myself and others. It has also been a very useful tool in connecting with others. There are so many people that have the shared language of poetry, of art and I think that the ways that we explore the complexities of being human is so vital. I am grateful for the gift of it.
Yet.
Sometimes all of that feels so grand and esoteric. Like I am asking all of the big questions about being alive without considering the minute details of the everyday. Or considering how art can be a way to just … be happy.
To just enjoy all of the simple ways that life can be beautiful.
And realizing this, I began to do it more consistently in the things that I create. So that even if I write a story or poem about something very sad, I still want the world of that story to remain beautiful. Because oddly, the world always stays beautiful, it always remains bright and hopeful for you. And I always want to remember that. And to live life unafraid.
One artist that definitely worked hard to input the beauty of the world into his paintings is Vincent Van Gogh. I mean, he lived a very rough life of hard-scrabble poverty in the Dutch country-side. His issues with his mental health were very poorly understood in his lifetime, so he had to suffer all of that alone. And then, his work, celebrated as it is now, was considered too bright, or different to be taken seriously in the time he was alive.
Still, I am glad he stayed firm and created what was true to him despite all of the reasons not to. Despite all of the reasons to just leave it all behind.
In his renditions of the simple world he lived in. Of the country side, the common people, the starry nights he saw over and over again, I think we have such beautiful masterpieces that help us remember that there can be beauty, even if we are afraid to go on. So, just remember that.
Alright, in closing, this post almost didn’t happen!
But I promised everyone three blog posts for the month of April, and here we have it.
I hope that we all enjoy this piece. And let me know about any art that has inspired you. I always love hearing about that.
Take care!