Funny

I'm reading Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. First of all, if you aren't familiar with her, please check her out.

She mentions a poem that a friend of hers once sent her and it made me laugh out loud on the subway this morning. I must share it. Phillip Lopate is the author:

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

Hilarious. She quotes this as an example of using one's feelings of paranoia, discontent or self-loathing when faced with a blank page and the need to write, and turning those very feelings into a piece of writing. It is like this for us actors as well, using whatever we are feeling in a given moment and putting it "into the text". Say I show up for a rehearsal and am feeling tired, or anxious or crabby or bored -- I can put those feelings into the script, using them for my benefit rather than letting them defeat me or get in my way.

This poem provided me with a good laugh this morning and I hope it did the same for you.

Happy Friday!