considering the other: getting zoned and the joy of socks

by Ren Powell

I have been struggling with the Other lately. Perhaps more rightly said, one of the Others. Not Ms. Perfectionist on my shoulder who tells me my poems stink, the one who takes all my confidence away and sends me to a kind of wilderness for weeks at a time where I swear I won’t ever write another word. But the other Other, the one whose head is as excitable as a freshly opened can of soda pop, ideas like tiny bubbles that spontaneously appear, then explode, leaving my nasal passages a little raw.

My grandmother used to stock her refrigerator with store-brand sodas: orange, cream, cola, grape, ginger and strawberry. Just for me. I am old enough now that my taste buds have turned toward bitter, but I remember the sweet sting in my nose whenever I drank from the glass she’d just poured for me. How I wish I had memories of relishing the sweetness of a peach or a real strawberry. Alas, I do remember biting into a real, worm-infested strawberry, but the truth is, the sweetness of my childhood has a chemical edge to it, a Jolly Rancher strawberry hardness and an angry fizz.

Do I digress? Yes, meet my other Other: the one who, just this instant, has now begun planning a puppet theater production with Jolly Ranchers and cans of strawberry soda that speak in iambic pentameter. The Other will keep me occupied with puppets and socks and Christmas stockings in an endless chain of free associations and ideas for projects that will fizz out as quickly as they appear but effectively keep me from finishing, not only this little essay, but the sonnet I have been struggling with … see, there goes the Other now — off to work on an operetta based on my still-unfinished sonnet.

This week, following the curriculum outline, I tried to explain the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi’s “flow” to my students. The sense of being in the moment during an activity, going with the flow, being in the zone, etc., where one loses track of time and space and our Ms. and Mr. Perfectionist are locked in the broom closet while the muse, or the genius, is free as a flower child or Tasmanian devil.

“Flow” sounds so gentle. “Zone” may be the proper word for me to use when describing my own creative state. My muse is Taz, jumped right off the television screen while I was watching Looney Tunes at the age of 8 or so. I may look serene sitting at my desk nurturing my bursitis, but my thoughts are spinning with such ferocious intention my family has feared that one day my computer will create a vortex that will suck me into another dimension.

I am lucky enough to teach a subject that fascinates me and I flow or spin in the zone through 20-minute sessions with individual students. I have to set a timer or I would carry on all day. Sometimes some of the students flow along with me, or we are caught up in each other’s vortexes like a Venn diagram for creative collaboration. Other times they are dying for that timer to go off, and I wade reluctantly from the flow myself. Can’t be selfish, after all. It’s like trying to enjoy a chocolate cake while someone whose mouth is wired shut watches. And her stomach is growling. And she is really only listening to my terrible accent so she can do a parody for the school revue next month. And she thinks my new haircut is unflattering … . When Taz leaves, Ms. Paranoid enters.

As good as the required textbook is, I have a few quibbles with the presentation of flow.

First, as a teacher, I find the list of things to do so that you can be in the “flow” less than instructive. Take Number 2: Be strongly engaged, almost ecstatic. Helpful? Just be “almost ecstatic.”

Oh, and here, take this Just Say No to Drugs pamphlet home to read, too.

Number 3: Have an inner clarity, know your goals and the way to reach them. If I am going to evaluate and guide my students along a path to inner clarity, someone better send me some special glasses and a very clear map.

My real concern is that the book doesn’t tell the students that, though experiencing “flow” or being in the zone may guarantee creative work, it doesn’t guarantee great, or even good, work. I am certain of this. You see, I live more than half my life in the flow or spinning in the zone and have comparatively little quality work to show for it.

I have been driving the same route to work for a decade and still get lost on the way to work if I am composing or brainstorming while driving. The last time this happened my teenage son was in the backseat and was then 20 minutes late to his Spanish class because I was totally lost on the flat farmland of Jæren, Norway. Five minutes from home. And he was laughing out loud. Probably in part because he isn’t sorry to miss Spanish class, but also because he empathizes with my zoned-out joy. It may not be quality work, but it is quality joy. It is something he has said characterizes me — being joyfully zoned out most of the time. And he has assured me that it is a good thing — most of the time. When it doesn’t make him late for school, or me late for work.

Number 7: The activity itself must provide a feeling of being its own reward. I’ll take that a step further — it must be its own reward. If the experience of flow is dependent upon an other’s approval, then I would say you haven’t really gone with the flow. I tell my students not to let grades affect their experience of performance or joy in the creative moment — the same way I remind myself that a rejection notice doesn’t void the joy of being zoned.

Elizabeth Gilbert has given a TED talk (linked here and embedded below) about genius being “the other,” not ourselves. She explains how poet Ruth Stone described her muse as a train that thunders through her and she simply transcribes the genius (ca. 10 min in).

Well, my muse is not as orderly. Or maybe I haven’t learned his language properly yet.

On second thought: Maybe I don’t really “flow” at all but simply have a narrow river and an inability to do two things at once?

It is a bit like orgasm, isn’t it? Reading all the Cosmo articles and listening to all the testimonials of transcendent sexual experiences and suddenly wondering if you’re missing out on something earth-shattering?

It is very much like a sexual relationship: You can’t be certain what quality of physical evidence you will have to show for it, can never be sure how you compare to other lovers, and you have no idea where he’s been the last week when he never answered your calls.

On the other hand, I can selfishly enjoy being zoned out, knowing Taz is always content with his sock puppets. At any rate, I wish he would leave me alone for a few days so I could get some work done.

So, who’ve you been seeing these days?

Ren Powell has published three poetry collections and eleven books of translations. She is a graduate adviser with Prescott College’s master of arts program and is pursuing a doctorate in creative writing at Lancaster University. Learn more at her website.