I unfurl / & return to the unfinished map / to center myself / and move from / —here / to a there / as yet unmarked / to discern the signposts and the keys / that orient me / and divine my cartography / toward future distances / & destinations
via unsplash
I’m planning to travel this year. You have no idea how strange and difficult it is to disclose that intention. Or, maybe you do, since late last year, I made a similar confession on trust & gratitude, on the concerted effort it takes to be vulnerable and discuss unfinished works. I’ve also written about the challenges (and delights) of imperfection. But planning provokes its own sense of anxiety inside of me, outgrown from a seed of self-doubt. I recognize plainly my aversion to choosing, to stating definitive decisions and making concrete itineraries as a fear of failure, which isn’t exactly the same as a fear of making mistakes. Mistakes, I’m happy to collect along the way, as I create, experiment, riff, improvise and pivot. I’m also a self-professed lover of research, incubation and preparation. Perhaps, even, to the point of arrested development. Devising a best laid plan, however, is a whole other mountain to climb.
Sure, I recognize the value of outlining goals or setting an agenda. It’s just historically been a forced, often paralyzing prospect, to map out my life, especially, in the long-term. It’s easier to orient myself around ideas, a concept, the next project or program that I’m involved with, rather than it is to chart a premeditated course. The fear becomes more crippling with the added weight of other eyes, ears and opinions; with the threat of someone potentially kicking the tires of my plan, only to discover I have a flat.
my thoughts lap marathons / my body remains at rest / my fears masquerade / as indecisiveness
Another thing about me, I have a habit of managing my digital files the same way I do the stuff in my storage closet and cabinets: out of sight, out of mind, tucked away in a state of semi-order or unseen disarray. Recently, while going through my writing backlogs from the past three years, I felt the urge to find and search. I typed in two words to see how many times they each came up in my notes, whether sandwiched in a loose thread of thought, undigested thesis or half-done poem.
First, I looked for “indecision.” There were two sightings in 2019, but, apparently, none in 2020, which is hard to believe, considering what was happening in the world that year and my own state of creative precarity.
I serve none of my titles well / my hips swivel and swell / with indecision / turning about with doubt / in every direction
Next, I searched for any occurrences of the word “plan.” In 2019, which was the last time I remember travelling anywhere, I stumbled upon some version of a plan seven times in total, including the one instance where that plan was affixed to an “-e” and traveling across years (even centuries). From that poem-in-progress, came these prophetic fragments where I envisioned some future iteration of myself in transit, “back on a plane / unbound and bound for / the other side.” The other side of what exactly, I couldn’t tell you.
Indecision remained present and on my mind in 2021, but I was surprised to see it only showed up once in my writing archive. Instead, what I found were three words that appeared and reappeared, like kind angels of affirmation: untether / detach / escape.
I think I’ll start here.