MAKE A LIST when you’re lost and it’ll guide you back to the point of things, to steer yourself in a direction meant to delight you. When I walk our dog, I often ask him, “Which way, which way?” And sometimes he’ll pause and ponder the question, but just for a moment, before he makes his move, a gut reaction, a way forward—he knows where to go and he leads me. What a good boy.
When I say make a list, I mean a list taken from the pages of the Surrealists’ handbook. I got the idea from an ex-boyfriend who worked as a photographer when I met him. We used to teach together in public schools, create curricula for youth centered on creativity and collaboration. He’d always make what he called a “shot list” for our students—a list of assignments that were open-ended enough to yield a wild array of results.
"Take a photo that bends light." "Take a photo that talks to the color green." Take a photo that made a decision."
When my current love, a musician, told me he was feeling lost and uninspired by his process, always following the same formula and feelings to create his albums, I suggested a “sound list.” Make a list of directions you could take a song and follow it, however you interpret the assignment.
He was game, so I made him a list:
Make a song that feels like clouds
Make a song that reminds you of trees
Make a song that sounds like your childhood
Make a song that asks too many questions
Make a song that melts in the heat
Make a song that loves to look at itself in the mirror
Make a song that sounds like a date with god
Make a song that a dog would love
Make a song that makes me cry
Make a song that travels only at night
I asked him how it was going the other day—with the sound list—he told me it was going well, that it had him pondering the shape and feel of clouds, that he was working with the ethereal and transient nature of those fluffy beings floating overhead. I told him it didn’t have to be so literal—that’s always a playful tension between us, me, the poet, him, the realist—but in all fairness, he got it, and he’s working on a song about clouds now, when just weeks before, the sky was dark.
I make all kinds of lists—it makes for a great poetry assignment as well—I used to ask my students all the time to make lists as poetic transmission. Make a list, I’d say, of things that go up, or things that go down. Things that move and things that remain still. Things you love and things you hate. Lists of places and faces, hatreds and favorites, lists of to-dos and to-don’ts. I got the idea from a book on teaching poetry to kids, when I was sure I’d be teaching poetry forever.
So I never made a list of other jobs I might have in a lifetime. Memory merchant. Nostalgia Dealer. Story Bender. Resident Director. Writing Consultant. Sentence Healer. Book Surgeon. Paragraph Peddler. Futurist Fawner. Instagram Ideologue. TikTok Talker. What else, what else may I be in this lifetime, at fifty, as women confess in quite a mess that they can’t find work for the life of them?
Make a list, I say.
A song list, a shot list, a poem list, a job list. A list of options and plans should the shit hit the fan, should the end and the beginning crash into such a chaotic flash we’ll all be stunned by its beauty! I know I could probably sell my chocolate chip cookies, famous just to my family members, but if the world only knew, if they knew! I could go door-to-door to floor my neighbors with their deliciousness.
My list will not include listlessness or listening, to be fair. I thought about going back to school to train as a therapist, but I think I’d make a better trapeze artist than deep listener, because I know at some point, I’d always want to interrupt and talk to them about the beauty of lists to make it all better. And no one wants to pay a therapist for quick solutions to their long list of life’s problems!
I can’t wait to hear my sweetheart’s cloud songs. And after that, a song about trees. My list for him is quite selfish, if I’m honest, it’s a list of sounds I want to hear as the soundtrack to these strange days and nights. I’m especially excited to hear what he does with that one about god—or that one about the song that loves to look at itself in the mirror—or that one song that only travels at night.
I don’t mean to congratulate myself, but I must admit the list as remedy is as good as any for these difficult and disturbing days. How the world keeps collapsing in on itself with words that no longer hold their meanings, how we in the world keep on walking through it, no longer certain of the ground beneath our feet—wobbly, wooly, woeful, wistful, a list of words that start with a letter of your choice, make it now, you’ll reach the letter Z and begin again with A.
Love you.
When I say make a list, I mean a list taken from the pages of the Surrealists’ handbook. I got the idea from an ex-boyfriend who worked as a photographer when I met him. We used to teach together in public schools, create curricula for youth centered on creativity and collaboration. He’d always make what he called a “shot list” for our students—a list of assignments that were open-ended enough to yield a wild array of results.
"Take a photo that bends light." "Take a photo that talks to the color green." Take a photo that made a decision."
When my current love, a musician, told me he was feeling lost and uninspired by his process, always following the same formula and feelings to create his albums, I suggested a “sound list.” Make a list of directions you could take a song and follow it, however you interpret the assignment.
He was game, so I made him a list:
Make a song that feels like clouds
Make a song that reminds you of trees
Make a song that sounds like your childhood
Make a song that asks too many questions
Make a song that melts in the heat
Make a song that loves to look at itself in the mirror
Make a song that sounds like a date with god
Make a song that a dog would love
Make a song that makes me cry
Make a song that travels only at night
I asked him how it was going the other day—with the sound list—he told me it was going well, that it had him pondering the shape and feel of clouds, that he was working with the ethereal and transient nature of those fluffy beings floating overhead. I told him it didn’t have to be so literal—that’s always a playful tension between us, me, the poet, him, the realist—but in all fairness, he got it, and he’s working on a song about clouds now, when just weeks before, the sky was dark.
I make all kinds of lists—it makes for a great poetry assignment as well—I used to ask my students all the time to make lists as poetic transmission. Make a list, I’d say, of things that go up, or things that go down. Things that move and things that remain still. Things you love and things you hate. Lists of places and faces, hatreds and favorites, lists of to-dos and to-don’ts. I got the idea from a book on teaching poetry to kids, when I was sure I’d be teaching poetry forever.
So I never made a list of other jobs I might have in a lifetime. Memory merchant. Nostalgia Dealer. Story Bender. Resident Director. Writing Consultant. Sentence Healer. Book Surgeon. Paragraph Peddler. Futurist Fawner. Instagram Ideologue. TikTok Talker. What else, what else may I be in this lifetime, at fifty, as women confess in quite a mess that they can’t find work for the life of them?
Make a list, I say.
A song list, a shot list, a poem list, a job list. A list of options and plans should the shit hit the fan, should the end and the beginning crash into such a chaotic flash we’ll all be stunned by its beauty! I know I could probably sell my chocolate chip cookies, famous just to my family members, but if the world only knew, if they knew! I could go door-to-door to floor my neighbors with their deliciousness.
My list will not include listlessness or listening, to be fair. I thought about going back to school to train as a therapist, but I think I’d make a better trapeze artist than deep listener, because I know at some point, I’d always want to interrupt and talk to them about the beauty of lists to make it all better. And no one wants to pay a therapist for quick solutions to their long list of life’s problems!
I can’t wait to hear my sweetheart’s cloud songs. And after that, a song about trees. My list for him is quite selfish, if I’m honest, it’s a list of sounds I want to hear as the soundtrack to these strange days and nights. I’m especially excited to hear what he does with that one about god—or that one about the song that loves to look at itself in the mirror—or that one song that only travels at night.
I don’t mean to congratulate myself, but I must admit the list as remedy is as good as any for these difficult and disturbing days. How the world keeps collapsing in on itself with words that no longer hold their meanings, how we in the world keep on walking through it, no longer certain of the ground beneath our feet—wobbly, wooly, woeful, wistful, a list of words that start with a letter of your choice, make it now, you’ll reach the letter Z and begin again with A.
Love you.
