David Colodney
Sure, I was up late that night, when I turned on the TV and Jimmy Fallon was writing his thank you notes, the piano-tinkling accompanying music going through my head.
OK, I’d had some wine, too, so I was certainly thinking my clearest after reading some of Kenneth Koch’s Selected Poems before I flipped on the TV. Koch’s poem, “To Jewishness,” was still on my mind as I started thinking about how we all have these outside identities that help define us. Or, maybe, that help others define us.
If you don’t know the poem, this is the poem where he realizes the identity of being a Jew was different from the actual practice of the religion, and he confronts his Jewishness throughout the poem, addressing it as “you” throughout.
Koch, not only one of America’s greatest 20th century poets but a professor and author of wonderful craft books on the writing of poetry, was on to something. If he had his Jewishness as his alter ego, I had one too: I had writing. I have often wrestled with the writing thing. I’ve struggled with it. I’ve fought epic one-on-one cage matches with it in my head. And, like Koch ultimately realized with his Jewish identity, I need writing.
And so, to you, writing, I would like to write you a Fallon-esque thank you note. But we need to clear the air on a few things first, ok, writing?
I realize now I had you even when I was a little kid, when my dad brought home both The Miami Herald and The Miami News, and I’d cut out all the sports stories and paste them together to form my own newspaper.
I had you as I became an editor on two college newspapers, but fought the urge to pursue you for a living because it was kind of a crapshoot and I needed to have a regular 9-5 like my dad. So I held a bunch of jobs I hated, yet I still came home to you and caught up with you first via typewriter, and now via my little 10” laptop I carry around, but also in the notebooks that take up a shelf in my closet.
I had you through my first marriage, and the raising of my sons. I cursed you as I covered high school football games on rainy September Florida nights. When my first son was born, it was in a hospital down the street from the Fort Lauderdale bureau of The Miami Herald where I worked; since my wife was being induced I knew I’d have time to finish and file the two stories I was working on for the Prep Preview edition, although if I had more time, the second story would have been better. And when my second son was born, my Herald editor was right with me. I mean, literally, right with me. His son was also born October 17, 2000.
When I went through my divorce, you were there for me in a rented apartment equipped with strange furniture and pictures on the wall of people I didn’t know. When my younger son was so seriously ill, it was you I lashed out at and cried with and, when he was better, the one I celebrated with first.
When all the numbness wore off and I fell in love again, you were happiest for me, even though we took a little break from each other for a while. But you knew I’d be back, and you were right. I mean, you were the one who helped me sort out my feelings for this new woman in my life.
For sure, there were times I hated you, and times I resented you for distracting me from things other guys my age cared about, their golf clubs, washing their BMWs, watching the stock market. I know a guy who has had the same job for 12 years and always seemed perfectly content. As much as I may have wished, Mister Normal Suburban Guy could never be me because I had you gnawing at me constantly. Damn you, writing, it was you who made me go back to grad school in my mid-40s! It was my way of trying to understand you, I think.
Sure, I get angry when you wake me in the middle of the night with your words, your damn words, and ideas, oh, man, don’t get me started on the ideas, too. Good thing I keep my iPhone next to my side of the bed, so I can type in your better thoughts before I forget them.
And so, to you, writing, I thank you. You know I need you. Hell, you’re like a tattoo: branded on me forever. I guess I’m grateful you found me.
Now if I could just get you to stop with that waking me up stuff…
After realizing from an early age that he had no athletic ability whatsoever, David Colodney turned his attention to writing about sports instead, and has written for The Miami Herald and The Tampa Tribune. He currently studies poetry in the MFA program at Converse College, and serves as Assistant Poetry Editor of the 85South literary magazine. His poetry has appeared in Shot Glass Journal and Egg. David lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.