A Book of Beginnings: Finishing

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“What if you don’t finish?”

“Huh?”

You are balancing the spoon on your slender index finger. The spoon is like the scales of justice. Tip. Tilt. Tip. Tilt. Tip. Tilt.

I watch you showing off your mastery of this small physics.

“You started. What if you don’t finish your Book of Beginnings?” Not even looking at the spoon, you are really showing off now, peering intently at me as you wait for an answer.

“That might work out alright, ” I say. “It’s a book of beginnings. Who would fault me if it never ended?”

Tip. Tilt. Tip. Tilt. Tip. Tilt. “Sounds like some kind of fancy writer’s rationalization. Seriously, what if you don’t finish?”

I flip my napkin lightly, fold it slowly, then look straight at you. My brown eyes are all mischief. “Where’s your book?” I ask.

Your show-off spoon tilts too far and you catch it quickly, looking a little sheepish. “What book?”

“The book you’re writing, ” I say.

“I haven’t started a book.”

I open your fingers and take the spoon, now balancing it on my own smooth fingers. “I see, ” I say.

“Ah!” you laugh. “Well-played, Princess. You’ve got me. There’s definitely something in the starting. I’ll grant you that.” You place a blueberry into the spoon and the curved end tilts your way.

I compensate and bring it back into balance. “There’s everything in the starting. No starts, no finishes. No starts, no surprises. No starts, no learning. I offered a how-to-teach-writing workshop to a group of home educators once, and this was my biggest point: who cares if your kids finish a piece of writing…just care if they start, and that of their own accord. Their kids were crying over writing, or declaring it boring, or shouting that they hated it. Don’t make them finish, I said. And let them start what they will, when they will.”

“What about discipline? You didn’t think it was important to teach them discipline?”

“What is discipline?” I put the spoon down on the table and pick the blueberry from its curve.

“Discipline is you not eating that blueberry, even though you’re holding it.”

I pop the blueberry into my mouth and burst it with a quick bite. Your eyes open wide.

“Undisciplined!” you point teasingly at me and laugh.

“Unmotivated, ” I counter. “Why should I care about not eating the blueberry? Give me one good reason.”

“Because I said it would be undisciplined if you did that.”

I lean towards you and take your hand in mine, extending your slender finger and placing the spoon on it. “Balance it now. Go ahead.”

“I’m done with that. I already proved my chivalrous ability to wield the spoon and impress you.”

“Undisciplined.” I smile.

Photo by Pauline Mak. Creative Commons, via Flickr. Story by L.L. Barkat, author of The Novelist: A Novella.

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L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat

L.L. Barkat is the Managing Editor of Tweetspeak Poetry and the author of six books for grown-ups and four for children, including the popular Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing. She has also served as a writer for The Huffington Post blog and is a freelance writer for Edutopia. Her poetry has appeared on NPR and at VQR and The Best American Poetry. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
L.L. Barkat

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Comments

  1. So, you reveal my hesitance/resistance AND stir up my competitiveness—with a spoon and a blueberry. But I ain’t gonna fall for this. Huh-uh. Nope.

    [*clink* goes my spoon as it drops to the floor]

    Reply

  2. 🙂 Monica! Clever you are. (oh and by the way while we are here together you might be interested to know that your writing on the catering gig was so visual… so delicious… so sensory that I cannot slice an pepper or smash (with a bit les rigor) a garlic clove without recalling it. Just sayyin… put the spoon back. 😉

    Love the play with discipline… I mean, discipline is not usually something to be played with… or IS it? So now you have me thinking…. Sparking memories…. Noticing things. Hmmmm….

    Reply

    • Donna, I love the way you think. I hadn’t considered that discipline was being played with here, but of course it is.

      So, do you think discipline can be played with?

      Reply

          • or just give me the really long answer. You know I like to hear what you think here. 🙂

          • It only makes sense if we KNOW something we should BELIEVE it, right? but that’s not always true.

            I want to say I believe it because I know it.. you just did it eloquently, and i see people do it all the time… But if I REALLY believed that discipline was universally a playable construct I would be playful about it (wouldn’t I?), or at least less punishing… I think. But I’m not. In fact, what I just this moment realized is that I would much rather never start something anybody knows about unless I already know (believe?) I can finish it… because an unwritten contract on my heart tells me I have to finish it …and it had better be great… (I’ve heard that said a lot, and I’ve probably even said it before… but somewhere in a new spot I get it differently all of a sudden) So, maybe as I’m telling you what I don’t believe I am starting to believe it just a little bit more. LOL! Shifts can happen when awareness creeps in, yes? This wrestling match feels vaguely familiar, as if I’ve rolled around on the mat with these ideas before. Funny how we move in and out of figuring things out.

            Time to let loose of this grip I have on old beliefs and craft some new ones that honor who I really am … now that’s a good beginning isn’t it? Don’t hold me to it though. I’m not signing anything!!! 😀

          • you are using language i love to hear: *honoring who you really are.*

            Please, yes. There are amazing things are inside you, waiting to be played.

  4. “There is everything in the starting” can we at least get these words on a wordcandy ASAP 🙂 if nowhere else. And Monica you have me raising pom poms in the air for you. Do you hear them rustling?

    And how about a new wordcandy category “Beginnings”

    I might raid the shelves of the candystore on that one.

    My pageless book has blueberry stains on it but smells of fear and trembling. pee yew lethal combination.

    Reply

  5. Spoonful

    It started with not eating,
    smooth fingers, like scales,

    balancing the biggest spoon
    — Tilt and tip. Tilt and tip. —

    but, like all your beginnings,
    never ended. Never finishing

    is an answer, I’ll grant you.
    You stop, holding the curved

    end your way, your eyes wide
    and all mischief. You might

    show off that blueberry
    in your mouth — that would

    be justice — a quick bite,
    a burst, a laugh. You might.

    I care when you take me in
    hand, point a slender finger

    at the spoon, declaring, No
    surprises. Everything is there.

    ——
    (I don’t know how to get this to show the italics I used.)

    Reply

    • would love to know where the italics were. Love the poem. Here’s a favorite section…

      You might

      show off that blueberry
      in your mouth — that would

      be justice — a quick bite,
      a burst, a laugh. You might.

      Reply

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