Back to work

Heading back to “school” after the summer holidays is always a … delicate… time of year. Heading to the office on public transport the other day after the 3-4 week break of the summer holidays, it could of gone several ways. Luckily, I think I chose the right path.

I fully intended to pull my paperwork out of my bag and make use of the commuting time quasi-productively by beginning the oh-my-god-I’m-no-where-near-ready-for-la-rentrée panic a full twenty minutes earlier than if I waited to get to my desk. I didn’t do this.

I could have chosen instead to turn my brain-cells towards chiseling away at one of at least five poetic ideas that are kicking around in my head at the moment. None of them have reached pressure stage yet, bugging me to give them form, making me wander around distractedly, muttering to myself and occasionally walking out in front of cars. Having so many ideas awaiting attention has created its own sort of limbo, as I don’t really know where to start. I’m currently more bugged by a general feeling that I’d like to be writing, and the knowledge that if previous back-to-school experiences are anything to go by, writing time and brain-cells are going to be at a premium in the near future. So today, trying to poem on the commute could well have created as much mental tension as trying to confront the rentrée work overload. I didn’t do this either.

Instead, I forced myself to sit back and listen to music. For some unknown reason, whilst waiting for the bus, I had an urge to listen to Joni Mitchell “Both Sides Now”. As I hadn’t mp3ed my Joni Mitchell albums onto my phone’s SD card, this meant going online (using precious subscription megabytes). But oh boy was it the right thing to do. Her soaring voice somehow lifted my soul and soothed my spirit, and I spent a happy bus ride plus bus-stop-to-building walk partaking of the rest of the “Clouds” album.

I’ve noticed the benefits of commute music before – arriving relaxed and/or energized, pumped by someone else’s creativity instead of clawing at my own, the music releasing my brain from the obligations both of searching for its own words or fretting over the day job. Poetry has its limitations after all.