Strangest Moment
These are NOT my words. They belong to another woman. A living and breathing and talented poet.
Okay. This right here is prime evidence of my neuroses and my inability to take a break. Why, you ask? At 6:43pm this evening, I posted this wonderful poem, the first stanza of which is quoted above. I indicated very clearly that the poem was not my work, but that of poet Kate Light. And I even included a hot link to Kate's website.
I did this because: (1) I love the poem; (2) I am tired; (3) I love the poem. The poem is about the beauty and strangeness of change. About that moment when the world suddenly seems upside down, when the brain starts shedding cells and evolving, when questions abound. Truth be told, I don't know exactly what the poem is about, but I love it anyway. Actually, I think I love it because of its concurrent clarity and opaqueness. The point is that I love the poem and I was feeling lazy and wanted to go to the gym and relax instead of producing a blog post. So I did.
And doing so made me feel good. Great, even. Why? Because I felt changed. Old school Aidan would have tortured herself over a soliloquy of a Sunday night post, but new school Aidan was about balance and limits and self-love. How perfect that I had posted a poem about change and doing so made me feel changed! Awesome.
Not so fast. A few hours later, back from the gym (I lasted twenty-seven minutes and stopped for ice cream on the way home - go me), I was suddenly super concerned about the law of fair use (a law with which I am reasonably well-acquainted because of legal permissions I had to procure for LIFE AFTER YES). All of a sudden, I was awash in guilt that I had burned 237 calories and eaten 1064 posted Kate Light's entire poem on my site. Paranoid that I had done something wrong. Immoral. Borderline evil.
And no. No one would have known. No one would have cared. No one would have come after me. But, hey, I'm a writer and a lawyer and I should respect copyright laws and intellectual property fences even if I have a less than perfect sense of what those laws are and where those fences stand.
So, pathetically honorably, like a good girl, I removed the poem from my site and left that lonely stanza up top. And then I typed these words you are reading now which sadly commingle on your bright screen, confirming something you probably already know: I like to worry. For me, it is a hobby. I look for things to worry about. And I find them. They are everywhere. Waiting to burrow into my consciousness and make me spin.
Ah, change. Is it possible? Will I always choose to angst over nothing? To trade in life's periods for question marks?
Who knows. What I do know is that you should read this poem now if you haven't already done so. And then you should write me a comment about how, yes, change is not only beautiful and strange, but is possible. And then you should tell me that it is plain cute and utterly human that I worry so much and fetch ice cream on the way back from the gym.