Do Hard Things

I haven’t got a lot of time, which has been the mood of the past month. I worked a lot this week, and there was much going on, so I did not accomplish any writing. I don’t even have time to do so right now, I am just sneaking this little blog in before I head out on an adventure which I will probably write about this coming week. In the meantime, I just want to tell you a little something.

As a usual reader would be aware, I have no problem performing the poetry that I write. Typically, I will venture out to an open mic once or twice a month, and I will read some poems and some people will applaud or tell me they enjoyed it. Sometimes, I bring my husband with me. He is not the literary sort, but he supports my writing so passionately that he has no problem sitting through readings as long as I am participating. In fact, he looks forward to going to watch me perform.

This past Wednesday was poetry night at the cafe. I went and read two poems about Mom, one from before she passed that I wrote on Thanksgiving last year, and one from recently. I received great recognition for this, and I was very pleased. But this is not about me. This is about my husband Mark, who decided at noon that day that he wanted to try reading a poem.

Mark woke up one morning a while back and told me that he had a weird dream about going to work in the snow, and that he wanted to be able to express how he felt in the dream, so I told him to write a poem about it. He did and then gave it to me to edit. I recall that it did not need much work, and I was impressed that he wanted to do it in the first place. I published it here in my blog, and he was really proud of it, so I was not super surprised that he wanted to read it.
However, my husband has never read in front of anyone. Even in school, he kept his head and hand down, not volunteering because he didn’t feel as comfortable in his knowledge as he should have.

This was a very big deal all of a sudden, and I was delighted to assist him in his goal. During the afternoon, we practiced his poem many times and what he would say to introduce himself. He had never read in front of anyone, and he had certainly never riffed in front of anyone, but when he got up there, he did great. He told everyone that it was his first time, and they applauded for him and cheered. Halfway through the poem, he tripped a line and got nervous, and they clapped again, telling him to keep going. When he was done, there were hollers and applause and a smile on his face that I had not seen since our wedding day.

Afterward, much is it does with me, anxiety came to kick his ass. We could not stay very long, but I was so proud of him. He did some really big scary stuff that night- and it was beautiful.  My husband may not be a writer, but he does have the heart of a poet, and he showed that to us on Wednesday night.

So that is all. I just wanted to share this moment and remind all of us that we can do hard things. Happy weekend!