For months, I've been wrestling with myself - with my muse, I guess - sometimes trying to write, sometimes trying not to write. In any case, the blank page is indeed like a bull, just like Papa Hemingway said.
Ideas are there. Ideas are always there. It's getting them out the way that I want them that's the hard part.
It's also hard recognizing when something is just a small something, or when it's a larger something, needing time and fleshing out.
Add in the pressure I put on myself to write and it starts to feel like a duty more than a gift.
When I was a kid, I just wrote. That's what I did. I had a Trapper Keeper full of stuff - things I never wanted anyone to see. Sometimes people saw them anyway. But I never had this sort of verbal bottleneck that I have now. If it was there to be written, I wrote it.
It's harder now. I'm sure that part of it is a fear of rejection - part of it's an idea that I know what's "marketable" and what isn't. As if marketability has ever been my reason to write. Writing, for me, has just been what I do. I wrote my first poem at the age of five, and I've never stopped writing since.
Is it crap? Yeah. A lot of it's crap. Some of it is even award-winning crap. One piece is award-winning, published crap. But I wrote it.
I'm trying to remember that writing is what I do. And I'm trying to straighten out the bottleneck.
It's not as easy as it used to be.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Thursday, February 8, 2007
It's Farther Down Than You Think.
Tonight, I finished reading A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. It was a really thought-provoking book for me, apart from the fact that I've about decided that Nick Hornby is one of the most insightful authors I've read in a long while and I'll probably end up reading everything he's ever written (probably by the end of the year, because that will count towards my New Year's Resolution of 100 Books This Year [16 down, 84 to go!]).
The book is about four people who meet on New Year's Eve on top of a tower. They've all gone there for the sole purpose of flinging themselves from said top-of-tower. Three of them are British, one American. They sort of band together and become a little family unit in and of themselves, stemming directly from the single moment where they all simultaneously chose to go on living.
The choice to go on living is one that some of us have to choose to make on a daily basis. You can take that in a broad sense ("Today I choose not to lay down in front of that bus.") or in a narrower sense ("Today I choose to pay attention when my kids/husband/boss is/are talking to me and really plug into this world.").
I'm the narrower sort.
I sometimes feel like my entire brain is wrapped in cotton. I have to make a conscious effort not to check out and listen to the wind-chimes in my head while people are talking to me. Sometimes, I have to make a conscious effort to live in the now.
I don't know that that makes me special - I think it just makes me tired.
At one point in the book, the little group reconvenes on the top of the tower, whereupon they witness someone actually doing what they contemplated. They try to talk him down - try to get him to join the "gang," but he stares at them and then scoots over the edge. This single event brings utter clarity to the group as a whole: whatever store of courage one has to have to actually end it, none of them truly have that.
This brings up another interesting, and, sadly, timely issue for me. To me, this is the difference between people who actually eat the gun, actually asphyxiate, actually overdose, and people who fuck around in bars doing recreational drugs, sleeping with dangerous people, drinking themselves stupid and riding on the hoods of cars around the block. (I have done two of those things - can you guess which ones?)
It's the difference between people who do these things not because they truly want to kill themselves, but more because they want someone to look and say "wow - she has a real death wish" and wonder why - just take an interest in them, no matter how fleeting - and the people who have a very serious and real desire to end it all right this second because nothing will ever change their minds.
It's the people who don't care what other people think about them anymore who have the nuts to actually do it.
My mother's cousin actually did it on Christmas Eve. She ate the gun. She quit caring what other people thought - she just did it.
She also thought my grandmother is a prophet.
What's the point? There is no point. There is only food for thought. I'm not saying you have to reach out to every unstable self-hater shooting smack in the bathroom of your favorite club. I'm not even saying you have to suddenly understand Paris Hilton. (And if you do suddenly understand her, I demand to know what brought this little epiphany on, and if we should keep you away from bars and dangerous people.)
I'm just saying, think about it.
The book is about four people who meet on New Year's Eve on top of a tower. They've all gone there for the sole purpose of flinging themselves from said top-of-tower. Three of them are British, one American. They sort of band together and become a little family unit in and of themselves, stemming directly from the single moment where they all simultaneously chose to go on living.
The choice to go on living is one that some of us have to choose to make on a daily basis. You can take that in a broad sense ("Today I choose not to lay down in front of that bus.") or in a narrower sense ("Today I choose to pay attention when my kids/husband/boss is/are talking to me and really plug into this world.").
I'm the narrower sort.
I sometimes feel like my entire brain is wrapped in cotton. I have to make a conscious effort not to check out and listen to the wind-chimes in my head while people are talking to me. Sometimes, I have to make a conscious effort to live in the now.
I don't know that that makes me special - I think it just makes me tired.
At one point in the book, the little group reconvenes on the top of the tower, whereupon they witness someone actually doing what they contemplated. They try to talk him down - try to get him to join the "gang," but he stares at them and then scoots over the edge. This single event brings utter clarity to the group as a whole: whatever store of courage one has to have to actually end it, none of them truly have that.
This brings up another interesting, and, sadly, timely issue for me. To me, this is the difference between people who actually eat the gun, actually asphyxiate, actually overdose, and people who fuck around in bars doing recreational drugs, sleeping with dangerous people, drinking themselves stupid and riding on the hoods of cars around the block. (I have done two of those things - can you guess which ones?)
It's the difference between people who do these things not because they truly want to kill themselves, but more because they want someone to look and say "wow - she has a real death wish" and wonder why - just take an interest in them, no matter how fleeting - and the people who have a very serious and real desire to end it all right this second because nothing will ever change their minds.
It's the people who don't care what other people think about them anymore who have the nuts to actually do it.
My mother's cousin actually did it on Christmas Eve. She ate the gun. She quit caring what other people thought - she just did it.
She also thought my grandmother is a prophet.
What's the point? There is no point. There is only food for thought. I'm not saying you have to reach out to every unstable self-hater shooting smack in the bathroom of your favorite club. I'm not even saying you have to suddenly understand Paris Hilton. (And if you do suddenly understand her, I demand to know what brought this little epiphany on, and if we should keep you away from bars and dangerous people.)
I'm just saying, think about it.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Maddy is a Big Kid.
Tonight, after the Super Bowl, we were brushing Maddy's teeth and she decided that now would be a good time for me to pull her incredibly-loose bottom-front tooth. She cried about it, because she was scared, but she held her Daddy's hand and I pulled it.
It didn't take much pulling, and there it was, in the palm of my hand.
The tears stopped immediately and were replaced with a beaming, if a little soggy, smile and all the pride a five-year-old girl can muster.
There was a little blood, but we took care of that quickly and with a minimum of fuss. She couldn't quit looking at the new space in the mirror - the pride was just shining through that brand-new gap in her teeth.
"Next year," she says, "a new tooth will grow in. A big tooth. Next year."
"Sooner than that, I hope," I reply.
"And now, the Tooth Fairy is going to give me money." Money is a bit of an abstract concept to her right now. It's mainly something she puts in her piggy bank.
We looked around a little bit and found a black silk pouch that my grandmother had given me. It used to hold one of her necklaces - a piece of jewelry I'll always associate with her, because it was a signature item of hers for a long time. We put the tooth in the pouch, and put the pouch under her Cinderella pillow, close to the edge, so the Tooth Fairy won't have to root around under there for very long.
Then we called Grandma, and we called Nana and Maddy told them her news. Not so very long ago, we were calling so two-year-old Maddy could announce delightedly "I pee-pee on the potty!" Now she says with quiet pride: "My tooth was loose, and then it came out!"
In the morning, she'll find two Sacagawea gold dollars in the pouch under her pillow. I wanted to give her five dollars, but her dad said that he had gotten twenty-five cents per tooth, and inflation wasn't quite that bad. (We compromised at two.) Tomorrow, she'll show all her friends at pre-school her new dental profile. Tomorrow night, she'll show all her friends at band practice.
Tonight, I blink back some tears and try to hold on to my little girl. She's not-so-little anymore, and getting bigger faster than I can get myself ready.
It didn't take much pulling, and there it was, in the palm of my hand.
The tears stopped immediately and were replaced with a beaming, if a little soggy, smile and all the pride a five-year-old girl can muster.
There was a little blood, but we took care of that quickly and with a minimum of fuss. She couldn't quit looking at the new space in the mirror - the pride was just shining through that brand-new gap in her teeth.
"Next year," she says, "a new tooth will grow in. A big tooth. Next year."
"Sooner than that, I hope," I reply.
"And now, the Tooth Fairy is going to give me money." Money is a bit of an abstract concept to her right now. It's mainly something she puts in her piggy bank.
We looked around a little bit and found a black silk pouch that my grandmother had given me. It used to hold one of her necklaces - a piece of jewelry I'll always associate with her, because it was a signature item of hers for a long time. We put the tooth in the pouch, and put the pouch under her Cinderella pillow, close to the edge, so the Tooth Fairy won't have to root around under there for very long.
Then we called Grandma, and we called Nana and Maddy told them her news. Not so very long ago, we were calling so two-year-old Maddy could announce delightedly "I pee-pee on the potty!" Now she says with quiet pride: "My tooth was loose, and then it came out!"
In the morning, she'll find two Sacagawea gold dollars in the pouch under her pillow. I wanted to give her five dollars, but her dad said that he had gotten twenty-five cents per tooth, and inflation wasn't quite that bad. (We compromised at two.) Tomorrow, she'll show all her friends at pre-school her new dental profile. Tomorrow night, she'll show all her friends at band practice.
Tonight, I blink back some tears and try to hold on to my little girl. She's not-so-little anymore, and getting bigger faster than I can get myself ready.
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