Are You a Room Without a Roof?

I was watching an interview with Pharrell Williams (composer/rapper) and he said, “I’m a room without a roof.” That struck home with me.  Some of my detractors say that I can’t stay with one thing, in my writing.  That I jump around from prison stories to children’s books, to mysteries, and on to poetry.

Yes! ‘I’m a room without a roof.’  There is no ceiling (boundaries) I can fly!  I stay open to the universe and to ideas and inspiration.  Watching that interview, Pharrell inspired me to write about my room with no roof.

Don’t let anyone lock your creative self in a room and slam the ‘roof’ shut.  Family, friends, spouses, all want what they think is best for you.  They love you right?  If I had listened to one friend, I would never have stepped on a stage.  When I told one of my oldest friends that I was going to an acting conservatory,  she was frightened.  When we talked it out, she was actually afraid that she would lose me.  I went on to have a 30+ year career on stage, acting and directing.

When I wrote my first serious piece (a play; Cook County Justice) my spouse said it was too dark, no one would ever read or product it.  It was produced eight times.  I trembled when I thought I had some poetry in me;  not many people have bought my book of poetry but the point is I wrote it!

I wrote this nine years ago, sitting in my car, on a foggy night, waiting for a ferry to take me to the island where my cottage was.  I opened all the windows and listened to the night sounds; water lapping pilings, night birds calling, fog horns in the distance, lights diluted into a gauzy image, dolphins piloting a freighter up the canal.

FOGGY NIGHT ©  Trisha Sugarek

The vessel slides, silent in the black, oily night,
mammals of the deep herald it with their flight.
The white orb, satiated with tidal flow,

peers through the veil, an eternal glow
A ghost ship slips up the fog laden channel,
night gulls’ sing with strident cries

Fog seeps in, the tide rolls out and dies,
day is gone, the night creeps on
Trees, dressed in ebony, drift by,

water glistens, gold and wet,
night edges blurred soft and set
Damp seeps into cloth, hair, bone,

fog casts tents of light over the landing zone
Hunters of the sea, fishers all, know not day nor night,
stark against the night shadows, white feathers in the light

Palm trees, brushes hard with black paint,
Stand in the ochre gauzy mist so faint

Pilings sway, matronly sentinels with their waists,
cinched with rope,
the craft finds her woody bosom, full of hope.
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