Revise

I am in the blessed place of revising my first collection of poetry, Garden.  This brings such energy and revisiting the poems motivates me.  While in this watery realization that the dream is becoming real, I am supposed to make corrections or changes before the work goes to print.  Permanent print. 

 

What if I miss something?  What if I am careless?  What if my prologue words are crystal clear to me and muddily goobidly gook to readers?  Is my personal love of double justified margins just a pain in the neck for my editor?  Am I too slow as I revise the book while simultaneously attempting to keep my family’s life running?

Dictionary.com provides the following definition of the verb revise.
1.  to amend or alter
2.  to alter something already written or printed in order to make corrections, improve or update
3.  British - to review (previously studied materials) in preparation for an examination

As I ponder the unalterable reality of printed work my mind draws lines to a recent conversation about regrets.  We nodded affirmatively that we might not change our life paths even if there are moments that make us wonder what we were thinking.  Moments where our own actions put us in an unpleasant place, felt like they were going to keep us down forever, or tested us beyond our expectations.  You know the conversation:  the would-a, could-a, should-a tap dance reflecting on our life choices. 

If I was offered the manuscript of my life in its messy first draft, what would I correct?  Would I risk missing a needed change?  Or alter something I would later wish I had left alone?  Would I be too darn picky about little things that don’t matter or are largely unnoticed by anyone else?  Can I attest with certainty that I would improve it?

We cannot edit our lives as poetry but don’t we sometimes really want to?  We mull what we might do if we had just one opportunity to do better at some place or moment in the past we determine today needs fixing.  I am sometimes guilty of believing I know more now despite the fact that “then” was “now” at the time I lived it.  I was certain about many things that don’t look so clear-cut in hindsight.  Is this ego thinking we know more than we did “back then?”  Maybe my knowledge resulted from “back then!”

I accept what has passed as indelible but not ensnaring.  We are not only our past because we have our present and future to choose (then hope to revise later?).  Time should be spent living new days and shutting down mental updates imposed on moments gone by.  Turns out, we only get one draft of each day so we’d better use our favorite pen and offer our best effort.  If I thought more about the permanency of my actions would that change the way I act today and maybe my yen to revise later?