In Search of Satisfaction!

October  2023 Blog

In Search Of: A Haiku

That “I Don’t Get No

Satisfaction” must end with

Much satisfaction!

by Ann Wilmer-Lasky

(9/30/23)

 

I may never know happiness or peace again, but I will know satisfaction. I will pursue it with dogged determination.

It seems I have been chasing rainbows and unicorns, looking for that pot of gold in vain for all these years. What I really needed was to feel safisfied with my accomplishments. Which was all well and good until I stopped accomplishing anything.

I guess it started with the pandemic, when everyone and everything seemed to stop in its tracks. I forgot to get back on the path when it subsided. My son’s unfortunate ending of his life just seemed to culminate everything. I stopped (I guess you could say, “dead  stopped”) accomplishing anything. I guess I thought without peace or happiness I could not enjoy life. Now I have realized that these are not esstial to existence, but “satisfaction” is.

Without being satisfied with something, there is no reason to do anything. As this realization came to me, I started to look around me and at my life as it stands. I walked around each room and rested my eyes on an object or an area, and I asked myself if I was satisfied with it. More often that not, the answer was “no”.

I thought about my writing career and what I’ve accomplished so far. I am not satisfied with that either. I want to start a new project and have so much left undone, I would be hard pressed to fit it in and finsh the others to any good standard.

But that is what I must do. It is too important a project to leave undone. This particular urge to write must be “satisfied”.

I intend a book of poetry and prose as a tribute to my son and the dystopian views we both seemed to share without me realizing it.

Upon completion and publication, I will be donating a portion of the proceeds to a suicide prevention organization in tribute to my son’s memory. The book will be titled, “One Life: Unlived” and I’ve already found an entry in a long-forgotten folder of writings to include. I wrote it about 20 years ago. It is in the form of a sonnet. I believe it is the only sonnet I have ever written and it was done as an exercise in a critique group to prove I could write one. That it is about writing and death is astounding to me at this point.

Now with my new-found pursuit of satisfaction, I feel my coffin (when I occupy it) will be a quiet one. I will be able to look at my surroundings and my accomplishments and say to myself, “I am satisfied!”

I owe that to my son’s memory and to myself.

The original sonnet, titled “Unquiet Coffin” is included here. More will follow.I would complete this new book by the 1^st anniversary of his death (March 26, 2023).

Unquiet Coffin

A Sonnet

by Ann Wilmer-Lasky

 

Uneasy would I lie, were I to die,

My song unsung, my stories all untold.

Among my woeful mourners, would I cry,

My soul awash in tears, my spirit cold.

Nor could I rest, were I to fall to sleep

To never wake again, my soul suppressed.

Within my heart, my characters would weep,

Their lives cut short, their mythos unexpressed.

To never rise again would come too soon,

If all my words lie stifled in the grave,

That hearts would never know their balm or boon,

And I would never know what joy they gave.

I owe my soul a coffin lain in peace;

I owe my words their birth, their sweet release.

 

As always, I welcome your reactions and responses to any of my blogs. I love to hear from my readers. Also, here are links to my Twitter and Facebook accounts, if you care to share your thoughts with me there or look for any publication announcements.

amazon.com/author/annwilmerlasky      

(insert collage)

https://twitter.com/awlasky

https://www.facebook.com/ann.wilmerlasky

It’s now October and the year is winding down. I would have some satisfaction before I wind down with it.