#TBT When I Have Fears

Well, I missed my Wednesday deadline this week, Readers. I apologize. So much busyness abounding in life that I just didn't get to everything. Nothing new here. More frustration on the writing front. And we’re mired in performance rehearsals for both children, in ballet and musical theater.  

Of course there is drama related to these performances. You know - who got what role and the appearance of favoritism - not in favor of my children, otherwise I would likely be unconcerned - let’s be honest. Many tears and self-recriminations from one child. Much stiff upper-lipping and monotoning from the other child. And I am rocketing between if and how or if at all to respond. 

This drama actually followed me to the doctor a couple weeks ago. There I had the  the strange and humorous experience of being at my annual gynecological (cover your eyes if you’re squeamish here) exam, literally with my feet in the stirrups and hearing my writing complimented. (For a response I did make to one situation.) 

For those of you who like to sip a cuppa something while reading my blog - and I've heard there are at least two of you - I'm attaching this piece from November, 2012. While the participants have aged, I must say, the Keats poem seems apropos. My fears, apparently, are timeless. 

When I Have Fears

By John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain, 
Before high-piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

I don't know why this poem struck me so much tonight. I read it to the children at dinner. Reading entire books aloud has become too difficult with everyone's schedules, but I decided we could fit in a poem a night, at dinner. The rule is to pick a poem quickly, from the Norton Anthology, even at random, and it has to be less than a page long. The 5th grader is into it. She loves to read aloud. The 9th grader endures it, sometimes with interest, despite herself. We've been at it since school started. I agree with the 5th grader. It is more fun to read aloud than to be read to; but it's good to do both.

Okay, I do know why this poem struck me tonight. It's because Keats is laying out his ambition and his fears. He's worried about dying before he gets all the good creative stuff out. He doesn't just want to get the "grains" out of his "teeming brain," though. He wants to put them into books. Plural. A stack of them. "High-piled." He wants success, people, and he's in a hurry.

He doesn't only want writing success, however. He also wants success in love. He wants it all. Well-rounded success.

I can relate. To the wanting part. And I have the benefit of history. Keats was right to be in a hurry. He was ill, and he died at 26. He loved Fanny Brawne, but things didn't go smoothly, because he had money troubles.

How does this relate to me? I am now closer to being twice Keats' last age than his last age, and I struggle with fear and ambition, too. I am under no illusion, however, that I'll write anything that will outlast me, and that causes me melancholy. Howevs, I am grateful I am tuberculosis-free, and only have a faint rash, probably caused by the synthetic fibers in my new workout shirts (according to the dermatologist.) So life goes. A little poetry, a little steroid cream, some generalized free-floating anxiety.

I am grateful to Keats.