Scribbling fit to bust

Scribbling fit to bust.

Yesterday saw the first meeting of the year for the little poetry group that meets in our home once a month. We call ourselves Scribblers. We use the time to read whatever work we have done since the last meeting using the rest of the group as a sounding board. We all appreciate the benefits of that. We know each other well enough now to laugh without meaning or causing offence.

We have grown very nicely into our own company and so we can question things that might not sit right or that we don’t understand. A couple of meetings ago, somebody suggested, that it might be a good challenge for us if we tried to learn and poem by heart for each meeting, instead of just reading the ones that we had recently written. It may have been me, I’m not sure on that but I am happy to take the blame for the idea, since I think it is really good for us to move out of our comfort zone, good for everything I think, including the stress of life’s problems and also our mental health. We all get a little forgetful now and then and as you get older that does start to feel like something unpleasant creeping up behind us from the shadows.

Anyway, the meeting yesterday was our third attempt at standing up and trying to perform by heart the piece we had chosen. On all three occasions I have faltered to a dreadful stutter on the first line… eeek! We all fell about laughing, which is good and then the second try was slow and hesitant but then once past the first line it all starts to slide past my lips without too much pain. I do know the works completely and that is the annoying thing. I can recite them to the cat, out of the window when I am alone, and also with a little more difficulty, looking at my husband, I say them to myself when I go to bed, and aloud in the car over and over again.  Overcoming the nerves of doing something new and indeed alien to the norm is not easy. A couple of others have suffered in the same way and it seems silly because you are with friends.

On the other hand we have some true stars in our midst. My friend Anthony, who is, it has to be mentioned and actor/singer with a local Am-Dram company, turned up on the first occasion and spouted pages of Tam O’Shanter by Burns, complete with Scottish accent. We have listened to poetry in other languages, followed by translations, which is fascinating. This time another of our members gave us a poem in Arabic! Marvellous. 

 

Then we have another man, who also belongs to a public speaking group and who always has some amusing snippets and seems to already know loads of poetry by heart. The multi musically talented Deirdre for whom even a big church organ is not her master, has also come up trumps several time now with engaging performances to our group.  We can also read a bit of flash fiction which makes a change.

 So all in all the Scribblers meeting made me think that is it always a good thing to leave the comfort zone now and again; test yourself in some way. Never be afraid to try something new. Then if you find it hard at first, be comforted by the thought that practice really does make perfect. 

 

When I tried to learn front crawl thirty years ago, I thought I would never get it right and that meant that I would not have been able to take up triathlon, let alone do well in the sport. Getting the technique, is a true challenge if you have always perhaps, been a breast or back stroker like I was when I started. 

The breathing may take a long time to get right, getting over the panicky feeling of swimming with your face in the water; however once you learn to relax it gradually becomes easier. The main thing you have to learn there is, to fully exhale into the water before turning to the side to inhale again. Most beginners find that the hardest thing, even when they get to the point where they can swim a length of the pool they are too breathless to continue. What they need to get into their head is, that if you do not fully exhale, then you cannot fully inhale and that is a progression. So less and less and less air means that you have to stop. The bath is the best place to try this breathing until you can calmly breathe fully out, you cannot breath efficiently in. 

The same goes for starting to try anything new. I started to write poetry about six years ago when I was very, very bad tempered about finding myself with my arm in plaster and my foot in a hospital boot after a fall out running, when on a holiday in Italy. I knew that a fidget like me must find something to occupy themselves to get through an irritation like that.

 I had loved poetry at school and had read poetry all my adult life, so I set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day until I was back to full fitness. That meant not just until the plaster came off, because there is then a period of getting the muscles and joints working properly again.

My early poetry may not have been of great quality but it was very therapeutic.

Getting to grips with a new sport or a new hobby will be difficult at first but it will also be most gratifying in the end. Who knows where each new road will lead? Maybe not to the exact point you first thought of, but its possible that the road you do take, leads to somewhere more satisfying, a whole new life maybe.