Tears your heart out

My 2008 new year's resolution is easy. I want a job. I had a job and I quit.

I got an e-mail from a friend at an old paper that kind of encapsulated well why I left. Chris just left. Joy left a while back. R is leaving for a California paper at the end of this month. Everyone at the paper is just miserable. I'm sure it's the same in many, many newsrooms. It is sad. We all got into the work because we love what we do. But newsrooms kind of tear your heart out these days. And when I pick up the paper and find nothing important or interesting or amusing to read, it makes me even sadder.

It tears your heart out. It's weird not having a job and not busting my butt to find a new one. But do I want another job that tears my heart out. And what if I was new to the English language and read that in another way. What if it was tears (rhmyes with ears) your heart cries so much it falls out of your body.

But I digress. Speaking of jobs, here's an excerpt from an interview with one of my favorite poets, Stephen Dunn:

No, I never wrote advertisements for a living. I wrote in-house brochures that went to the sales force of a corporation. Even with that kind of writing, my soul was in danger, which was why many years ago I quit, and tried to see if I was good enough to take a chance at becoming the kind of writer I wished to be. What I hate about most commercials is what I hate about society-speak and political cant. The debasement of language.

So, number two, I don't want a job that puts my soul in danger. That's scary just to think about. And we're all on some level poets here so I don't have to clarify that when I reference my soul being in danger, I'm not saying the same thing that someone more Baptist than I might say. Aarrgh. And that's pretty inelegant as well.

But besides the soul comment, there's something else speaking to me in that Dunn quote. Could I be the writer I wish to be?

I used to think of myself as a journalist, a reporter, a company man more or less.

Jody once encouraged me to submit some poems to be published. I had little desire to do that. Now, however, I'm starting to change my views on that.

I don't know why though. It's hard to explain. But I want to be a writer, I want to do something special. Something only I can do.

Here's one way of saying it. I took my car to get the oil changed today and I went to the dealership. Being unemployed, I thought to myself, perhaps I could sell cars. And I'm sure I can sell cars. I have the skills and it's not particularly at odds with my personality.

But anybody can sell cars. What about writing? I can write in ways that other people just can't. I can write in ways that other people only dream about. But the bottom line is I've got to actually do it and not jus talk about it.