inspiration for a less-than-inspirational day

It's been a rough day...with two days left in Sonoma County, the reality of this transition is slowly creeping in. For the first time in my life I'm heading into a direction that doesn't involve the predictable, and only includes this vague vision of a life I've dreamt to lead. It's potentially similar to the feeling an NFL player must have..a player who has dreamt throughout their entire life to play the big "superbowl" game. Michael & AnnaCosta (this photograph below is an example of their amazing work) forwarded a link through twitter to an amazing poem posted on OneLovePhoto, and it sort of puts the nerves in perspective...blessed be Marge Piercy!

*Talent is what they say you have after the novel is published and favorably reviewed. Beforehand what you have is a tedious delusion, a hobby like knitting.

*Work is what you have done after the play is produced and the audience claps. Before that friends keep asking when you are planning to go out and get a job.

*Genius is what they know you had after the third volume of remarkable poems. Earlier they accuse you of withdrawing, ask why you don't have a baby, call you a bum.

*The reason people want M.F.A.'s, take workshops with fancy names when all you can really learn is a few techniques, typing instructions and some-body else's mannerisms is that every artist lacks a license to hang on the wall like your optician, your vet proving you may be a clumsy sadist whose fillings fall into the stew but you're certified a dentist.

*The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.

~Marge Piercy