A definition of middle: A reflection

Find your midpoint

Spoken rendition of “A definition of middle”.

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A definition of middle was written as a poetic manifesto about the middle. It provides my point of view for what I want a middle experience to mean, what it is I don’t want it to be, and it works to create some prescriptive points for readers (including myself) in the spaces between the lines.

Photo by Pim de Boer on Unsplash

Process

I have recently been inspired to host gatherings with intention and clear purpose that those who attend understand before arriving, with the hope of facilitating more meaningful connection. As a person who loves intimate settings and conversation, and with my 40^th birthday approaching, I invited a close group of friends together to celebrate at my house. In the invitation, I let them know we were going to gather early in the party to reflect together on the possibilities that midlife holds. I specifically asked two of my friends to share their views and stories and I planned to bookend the conversation with two poems, hoping that this time would create a space of connection for this group.

Picking the first poem was easy. I decided on Journal, published earlier this autumn, a short poem that looks at the beauty of self-reflection. However, I could not settle on a poem to end the time with. Relatively late in the planning process, I had the idea to release a new poem on my birthday specific for the occasion of turning 40. So I began writing what became A definition of middle just 8 days before my birthday with the goal of ending the intimate gathering with it.

For the first time, I was working with a poem under a deadline, far different from my usual way of beginning, chipping through writing in 30-minute blocks, filing it away for later, and coming back to it after a few months to polish with a fresh buff. There were only 8 days.

Early on in the writing process, I noticed many similarities in how I was writing compared to my normal process. I still pondered the idea for a while prior to writing anything then started with a short journal reflection on some of the ideas as a type of primer for the poem to emerge. I still created some lists of words that I felt could fit into the poem thematically. I still swore multiple times as I tried to get the first line on the page. I still distracted myself with finding the right playlist on Spotify to listen to as I wrote. But there were certainly differences.

The first difference was I did the bulk of editing as I wrote.  As I “finished” a stanza and began to develop the next, I found I kept returning to the preceding work to not only use it to inform what I was writing, but to see what could be improved.

The second difference was once I had the first stanza somewhat settled, I formulated a conceptual roadmap of where the poem was going. There was fear of running out of time if I went down a path that did not work out, so the structure was a way of trying to prevent that outcome. I did wonder if that limited the potential of the poem to some extent, but landed on the belief that what the finished poem needed to really unpack what I was trying to portray in a concise and poetic way was the guiding structure.

The final difference was I gave a larger investment of daily writing time on the front end of the 8 days that I had. I did not want to be working to finish the poem’s first draft on my birthday, which meant I needed to try to get the draft completed with a few days to spare to allow for space to do final editing in multiple sittings. I find that is critical to the fine tuning of my work. This extra time, with some spurts of inspiration along the way, sitting through stuck points, and editing as I drafted, allowed me to have a relatively complete poem with about three days to spare.

I then moved the poem to a Word document where I completed the final edits, which for this poem mostly meant attempting to stick the landing. I struggled with how to close it out. I felt it needed a line that stood outside of the structure, something that would wrap up the poem with a statement that served as a closing to the manifesto. “Cosmic significance” felt too vague, “My life is not a meager middle” felt too obvious, and a dozen other iterations fell flat. So, after completing the rest of the poem, I let the ending stay open for another day and provided some space for it to emerge. When I sat down to write the next day, I read through the poem in my mind and out loud multiple times, and that is when I saw the ending already on the page, written in the first two words of the poem. Mind me. A beginning that would also serve as an ending. It is a sentence that can be repeated at any time in one’s life as a way of moving the walls around them again and again, where a middle cannot be found, and one can participate in the expansion of their life.

Notebook, pages 1-2. Musings on the topic, first drafts, lists, early edits, and early structure.

Notebook, pages 3-4, more edits, final structure. The final editing was conducted in Word.

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Themes

There are three sections to this poem: Self-limiting, Transition, and Expansion.

The Self-limiting section is constructed of the first three stanzas.

Mind me,
middle is where I slumber when
mere melancholy manacles my mind.

In the middle of nowhere.
Lost in the middle of the forest.
Stuck in the middle.
At midnight.
Midpoint.
Midway.
Midstream.
Midlife.

Mid mush mingles the manse of my mouth.

The first two words, “Mind me” are a play on “Mind you”, the phrase that often accompanies a statement we think could be misunderstood while we are stating it. We can see the shift to “Mind me” as a reminder that the middle is a place that is commonly misunderstood and commonly put into a box that it does not need to live in. This play on the phrase is also meant to give a selfish flavor to the start, in the way that we are often preoccupied with our own story. Being the center of the universe is a question that is examined later in the poem.

These three stanzas are written in a poetic attempt to portray a feeling of stuckness through the repetition of the words Middle, mid, and others that begin with M. I find this section agitating because of the repetitive Ms, leaving me wanting to escape this limiting view, and hopefully preparing the reader to also want to move on from this place.

Next, the poem begins a transition .

Middle, equidistant from everything,
everything expands
and when walls walk
how can I measure a middle
how can I claim to command
a center where I stand the whole story.

This stanza begins with the dreaded M tone, then transitions to other repetitive sounds, such as E’s (equidistant from everything), W’s (when walls walk), Hard C’s (Claim to Command) and S’s/soft C’s (center where I stand the whole story). This shift represents that the middle as a place to languish is only one way to experience this time, and while it is real for all of us occasionally, there are many other possibilities to live into.

This stanza defines what Middle is, then creates a critique of our ability to actually identify this place. When walls walk is a picture of a box that we have put ourselves in where the walls are continuously moving outward, and if those walls move, we can never identify where the middle is. Middle is just an idea that we create that is not identifiable.

Third, and perhaps most important is the realization that when one makes themselves the center of their story, it is a recipe for staleness and smallness. How can I claim to command a center where I stand the whole story. No one truly stands independent. Where we stand today and where we are heading is a product of our past, our culture and our relationships.

Finally, we enter the stanza of expansion.

Pure possibility
accelerates alongside,
sweeps me from this small spot
to enter an echo
of what walked before
and will walk today,
continuous creation
of light made dust made stars,
eternal energy expanding even
me.

I continued the use of varied alliteration on each line to reinforce the idea that no matter the phase of life one finds themself in, there are infinite ways to be in this world. Pure possibility, accelerates alongside, sweeps small spot, enter an echo, what walked, will walk, continuous creation, and eternal energy expanding.

This stanza is also written to be more lyrical than the rest of the poem, painting a picture of movement as the words leave the small place where the subject stands and are caught in the expansion and creation of what is around him. This idea of being part of a universe that is continuously expanding is a grand idea that while scientifically true may not resonate with everyone, but when I place my story as one speck of dust in a bigger story, it is a salve for the parts of me that live in anxious and controlling spaces. It allows a letting go of those wants and allows our small narratives to be swept into this shared story of expansion.

Finally, we end with the callback to the first line, Mind me. This second placement of the line is meant to prompt self-reflection for each of us. It serves as a reminder of how this poem began, an encouragement to look at a situation using multiple lenses, and how the way we look at our place in a story can make or break the life we live today. Today, I am viewing “Mind Me” as a short mantra. Brian, mind me. Tend to me, so I can tend to the parts of me that need to be healed, the parts of me that need a friend, the parts of me that need a challenge. Mind me, so you can effectively mind others, your family, and the people you encounter today. Mind me, so you can remember this Brian Funke project is not really about you.

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Thank you so much for being here! I hope you’ll take everything I wrote about the themes in A definition of middle and entirely throw it out to replace it with what you feel when you read it. This is the intent of the Poetry & Process newsletter, designed to allow space to let the poem do its work in you, by publishing the poem first with the reflection published days later. Poetry is alive and can inspire many different thoughts and feelings, and I honor that.

May you mind you.

Brian

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If you missed the “A Poem” post of A definition of middle, I hope you will read and enjoy! You can find it here.

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