Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well.
A storm has come and passed through our country. It is said to be the strongest storm in the whole world and has caused a lot of damage in the provinces, with 20 people on its death toll.
The country is also preparing for ANOTHER storm coming our way. Weather reports say that it might make landfall either today or tomorrow. Please pray for my country, so that we may survive this next storm.
My city is still under quarantine. We have been hitting 2000+ cases per day but yesterday, we hit a number below 1000 cases. Still a scary world out there, though.
On a more personal scale, I am surviving. Physically, I have no symptoms. I go to work five days a week, given that my office is right across my current home. I grab groceries every other weekend but stay at home as much as possible. Mental health is a bit whacked up – with the stress + anxiety from work, the uncertainty of this pandemic, and my financial instability being my greatest enemies to date – but I am trying and doing my best, one day at a time.
As a writer and a poet, I am very much lost.
When I started 2020, I didn’t have plans to write, with my work being as taxing as ever and I barely have any creativity in me. Retail tends to suck everything out of you – especially the time for your hobbies. (I have thought of quitting retail but I haven’t answered the next question – then what? – so quitting is not really an option. Girl’s got to eat.)
This has happened before but I have been able to fight it by simply writing and attending writing workshops and classes. My favorite writing exercise was flash fiction. (This link here will take you to a page where my flash fiction stories are posted.) I did write a novella once but I buried it as it wasn’t really well-written.
This year came as a surprise, starting with the pandemic and then, with me, putting my big girl pants on and joining AND finishing NaPoWriMo. I kept on writing and it was such a wonderful experience. I met new poets online, discovered more things about myself and the way I write… and had a blast writing poem after poem.
It was the best preoccupation – diversion, really – from seeing and feeling terrible. There was my lack of sufficient funds as we closed our offices during the enhanced community quarantine from March until May, with our vacation leaves saving us from poverty until a certain point. (We had a pretty long and unwanted vacation from April until May. We still worked from home until the end of March) There was my alone-ness, which I was originally ok with and which grew into gnawing loneliness for actual human interaction with people I miss.
By July, I was starting to feel everything crashing down and if you have read my poems on Instagram, they are always about finding the light in the middle of the storm.
And, lo! There is a storm that has been with me since late July, a storm where, as I stay in it, I couldn’t see any light at all. I was lost in my own chaos, my own light gone. My current circumstances made me unable to do things that give me light.
But I am fighting it the way I did before – attended a workshop in August, read books in September and October, and just let myself be. I let my being go through the motions until the storm calmed down. Forcing myself (as proven by my workshop poem and that novella) never really did me any good. So I go and “be the leaf”, as Meelo says.
One big and good news that may help my fight is that I am going home! I am getting tested for COVID in December, before I head home, just to be sure that I won’t bring the virus home. I’ll be able to see my siblings soon! It would beat the loneliness bit and help with the financial bit (as I won’t be paying rent anymore). There is a part of me that isn’t really looking forward to going home (Have you ever been around a Filipino mother? A Chinese father, perhaps?) but yes, must wear big girl pants and “be the leaf”.
The other good news here is that I am slowly writing things again too, with one poem, Why I Couldn’t Write, featured in Ghost Heart Literary Magazine last month. I am very, very thankful to Melissa for accepting this poem for Chambers. (More on this on the next post!) Submissions for Chambers – November 2020 is open, btw!
I can’t really say when I’ll be back writing full force again. Work is more stressful nowadays and I am doing my best to cope. I take it day by day, really. Breathe in, breathe out. One step at a time.
Hopefully, the world gets better so we can all find ourselves out of this pandemic. I pray for our safe passage through it. May every one of us be safe.
Thank you so much for sticking around! I will be back writing again, surely.
Love,
Anj
Anj Writes Poems! 