It all started with a pet rabbit. A cute little thing, white and gray with floppy ears. We would often let it hop freely around the garden and eat whatever it wanted since we grow mostly weeds in there anyway. Then it had a stroke. At least that’s what it seemed like. Half its face went droopy and it couldn’t eat properly. Worst of all, it could no longer hop in a straight line. Only in tight little circles always to its left, the droopy side. It was sad and the image of it stuck hopping forever in circles really troubled me.
A few years after the rabbit died, my son got a pet rat. It was also grey and white and we named it Peppers. I’m not a fan of rats, but this one was very sociable and it grew on me. My son carried it everywhere. It rode in his pockets, up his sleeves, or sometimes even on his head under his hat. He even got in trouble for sneaking it into his elementary school class one time.
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| Why, yes, that is a rat on my son's head and, yes, I am very proud. |
Then, one day, my son, clearly upset, brought the rat to me and said, “I think Peppers is sick.” He held it out and the rat looked up at me with bleeding eyes! I’d never seen anything like that before and, once again, as you can certainly imagine, the image troubled me.
A few years later, after the memories of the rabbit and rat had long been forgotten, I was doing a warm-up with my Creative Writing class. This was a kind of warm-up I call “stream of consciousness”, but most people call “free writing”. It’s closely related to what psychologists refer to as “free association”. Anyway, it’s one of my favorite types of warm-ups for any kind of creative work. You simply start writing whatever pops into your head without any attempt to control or direct your thoughts. It sounds easier than it is. Our minds naturally want to stay in control and force our thoughts to make sense. Making this even more difficult is the inner critic we all have in our head saying, “Don’t write that! It’s stupid! People will think you’re a psycho!” or “You’re so lame and you should stop writing before everyone figures that out!” It takes some practice to just let your mind drift without any attempt to guide it and to ignore your inner critic at the same time. If you do manage it, the results can be astonishing. These warm-ups always look like the babbling of a madman when they’re finished. But hidden within all the dribble, I’ve discovered some long forgotten memories and images, beautiful and frightening metaphors, buried emotions, and truly unique ideas. It’s a powerful tool!
On this particular occasion, I decided, just for kicks, to also write left handed (my non-dominant hand). I’d read somewhere that this was supposed to help tap some creativity as well. Plus, it’s just plain funny to try. I wrote it on a page where I’d already made a pen and Prismacolor drawing of some Celtic art. This art, no doubt, helped trigger the memory of the rabbit. Here’s the result from my journal:
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| Left-handed stream of consciousness warm-up from my journal. |
Since you likely couldn’t read any of that, let me just sum it up for you: In this bizarre little warm up of left-handed stream of consciousness I stumbled onto the two old memories of the rabbit and the rat and combined them into one sad little rabbit with bleeding eyes hopping in circles. I didn't mean to. I wasn't looking for those memories or any memories at all. I was just letting my mind wander whatever paths it wanted and that's where they led. I could feel the weight of it, sensed that I’d dredged up something important from the well of my mind, and knew that it was a little more than just a normal warm up. I thought, Whoa, that was a weird one, and continued on with my day, but the image wouldn’t leave me. So a day or two later, I wrote this journal entry:
I know, I know, I’m a little prone to the melodramatic (just ask my poor wife), but it does sometimes feel that way. I think most of us, at one time or another in our life, have felt like we’re just running on a treadmill, running like crazy, and with all this effort we think we must being going somewhere in life, but we’re not. In all the ways that really matter, we’re still in the same place we were before all that running. Through this silly warm up, I discovered I was feeling something like that. But what exactly was frustrating me so much? What was making me feel like I was stuck on a treadmill? What was making me feel like a bloody-eyed rabbit hopping in circles to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” of all things?
Well, this disturbing image continued to haunt me for two more weeks. Then, I sat down to write a haiku. Guess what popped into my head? That’s right, my friend the rabbit. Here’s the haiku:
The rabbit hops in
A ceaseless circle, bleeding
Eyes seek a new path.
Now, I know it’s my own head and all, but even I am a little surprised at what comes out of it sometimes. What was this all about? Flannery O'Connor once said, “I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.” I'm often this same way (except I might insert the word "feel" for "think"), so I started writing to try and sort my thoughts and feelings out. Here’s the journal entry that came right after I’d written that odd little haiku:
When I wrote that entry, I stopped at the line where I asked: “How do I pull the rabbit from the hat?” Then I doodled my self portrait while I thought about it (apparently, I draw to figure out what I think, too). Somewhere in the middle of the doodle, I figured it all out and finished writing my conclusion: Live more creatively! Easier said than done, I know, but I’ve been happier ever since I started seeking this new path.
And that is the very long story of how I accumulated some memories, lost them, retrieved them, turned them into a very short poem even I didn’t understand, and then made my life better by figuring it out!
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