A List of Where I Make Lists

• on a whiteboard in my kitchen
• in my green bird journal
• in my NEO-MFA journal from AWP
• on a pad of paper from that Paris hotel two years ago
• on the backs of envelopes
• on the invoice from the wine shop
• on my left inner wrist
• in the Notes app on my i-phone
• all over the inside of my head

If thoughts could write themselves, my pillow would be covered in lists.  I have always made lists.  On any given day, items on my list might be written in one of four languages.  I code my lists.  Sometimes I recycle them, or copy them over in better hand-writing, or keep them for years.  I love a good list poem.  In fact, all poems, the way they’re delineated, a few words per line, could all be seen as lists.  Maybe that’s what I like about writing them.  Though you can’t check off the lines in a poem the way you can the line items on a list.  And is there anything quite as satisfying?  Do you ever write down the things you’ve already done, just for the joy and sense of accomplishment of crossing them off again?  No.  I don’t either.  That would be weird.

The holidays are coming, as Maria Teutsch, author of MR chapbook The Revolution Will Have Its Sky calls them, the holidaze, and if you are like a certain jolly fellow in a red suit, you have been making your lists and checking them twice.  This year, the stress has hit early and it has hit hard.  But rather than succumb, I am dedicated to trying to keep it at bay.  Yoga helps.  So do mind-blowing sex, 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead, and a moderately chilled glass of Pouilly-Fuissé, not necessarily in that order or all at the same time, but wow, wouldn’t that be therapeutic.  Aside from those coping strategies,  I’ve decided to make myself a Not-to-Do List.  I figure it should be far easier to achieve everything I need to do, if what I need to do is Not Do anything at all.  Here are a few items on my Not-to-Do list:

I will NOT

• let fol-de-rol and fa-la-la take the place of butt-in-chair, hands-on-keyboard (or pen in hand, paper under it).
• forget that good readers make good writers.
• lose my sense of wonder.
• subject myself to Facebook Envy, compare myself to her or her OR her, pretend I’ve got all my sh*t together, or pretend I’m not exactly where I need to be.
• Pinterest any new recipes, diet plans, clever ways to display holiday cards, crafts involving spearmint leaves and styrofoam, or fishtail braids.
• complain.
• wear myself out.
• forget to say Thank You.   Not once.
• phone it in, fake it ’til I make it,  or shop ’til I drop.
• and finally, I will NOT Not Dance.  Somebody asked when was the last time I danced.  Every day, I said.  I dance a little every day.  Write.  Dance.  Love.  Put those things on your list, and may you never cross them off.

Happy Holidaze, Minervas!

-Emily