folds

 

***

there is not very much room left in

this notebook now. (who uses notebooks anymore

anyway?) i have used it much for

various things; it is close now to filled, scribbled with inks of

different color, different density, different

viscosity i suppose, though i never studied inks

enough to know if that word applies. on some pages i was

taking notes in classes (the

subject matter of which i no longer need for my

profession), on others outlining books that i

never completed (in some cases

never even began), even occasionally dabbling in

drawing, though art was never really much of a

strength for me.

 

you read sometimes of some lost journal

found among the tattered belongings during the

post-wake post-media cleanout of some famous artist’s house.

Inside could be scribbled lyrics left sadly sans music perhaps; or the

manuscript of some great play that never quite

wandered its way to the stage; or even a passionate discourse on

some pertinent topic, like human rights or something

important like that.

 

this notebook is destined to be

no such journal. its sad white gyri are bloated full, their

contents distinguishable only by the mercy of

narrow blue sulci, deep cavities dark and secretive like

unexplored caves by

the shore of the

dead sea.

***

“write something today.

just…something. anything.”

this probably isn’t good, but i am out of practice. we shall see if that can change.

RW

Psalm 0

***

i think trust must be

knowing

that someday i will be

standing

somewhere a

good ways off (a

good time hence),

and not

wishing

it was all different.

***

 

fifty-one

***

i am not he

any longer

 

and yet my shadow is

as angular, black as

his was, my voice as

scratched and rasped as

his was, my words

carelessly swung

swords as were

his words, my deeds

like plowing barren fields, like

breaking rocks into

dust, sad and pointless and

empty:

 

so too were

his filthy sick

 

hands.

 

his folly is my

sadness, his failing becomes my

habit, his silliness my frivolity; his

each new birth means

my death

 

and he is born

anew

 

daily.

 

(but so too

am i;

 

his is merely of

air,

dust,

 

wind;

 

mine of

water, of

fire, of

 

spirit, unnameable un-

tameable, un-

quenchable.)

 

 

(amen)

***

Honey from the Rock

There’s no falling back asleep once you’ve wakened from the dream  – from “February Seven” by The Avett Brothers

***

Is it possible a scent can actually hurt? That the right particulate olfactory matter can actually translate through some registering synapse into legitimate pain?

I didn’t go there with any purpose other than to kill time. Get out of the house for a while. Stretch my legs. Live up to some other clichéd phrase about wanderlust or boredom or some such sensation. I certainly, at least on the conscious level, didn’t go there to catch fire or to have life breathed into my stagnant malfunctioning lungs. I hadn’t been there in months, in fact. Used to go every day it seems. Did some of my greatest work there, though greatest is at best a relative term and at worst a complete misnomer. My portfolio, to date, hardly includes anything that merits the creation of a ranking system.

But the smell. It burned like icicles on bare hands. I’ve been to coffee houses many times since, and I drink coffee every day, so it couldn’t possibly have been just the coffee. Instead it must have been some amalgamation of that scent mingled with the aromas of unread novels and newsprint that did the killing; or rather, undid it. I found myself almost unwittingly back in the bookstore which during my fervent writing days I often haunted. Now instead it was I who was the haunted: potent, almost feverish, memories of those days when I felt right with my purpose and place in the universe now plagued me as I wandered from shelf to shelf. I felt like an amnesiac almost; there was a lingering and perfect sense that something significant had happened here, but I couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t lay hands to it and hold it tangibly, lift it to the light and inspect it. Instead I could only walk from floor to floor in the store, wondering, fearing. I was covert, on the sly, sneaking almost, either hiding from something or desperately searching for it. Rows of books that I had never read assailed me like the faces of people I thought I should recognize, yet I was adrift in a crowd of strangers.

I settled on a book, almost at random (although I have my doubts that anything is truly as arbitrary as it may seem) that was a compilation of essays by various successful writers about their motivations for pursuing the craft.

Not one of them said they did it for the money.

I would love to claim that I didn’t know the reason I stopped writing, but that would be a lie. I know exactly why and when it happened. Truthfully, I didn’t actually stop writing altogether, I merely stopped doing it for myself and began doing it for someone else instead. There was an immense and seductive thrill in this: someone actually wanted to give me money in return for borrowing my skills. Isn’t this, after all, what we all dream about? What we all think we need? Finding someone who is willing to pay us for doing what is our passion?

I have awakened from a dream that was not mine, as if while I slept my mind was transported into someone else’s body. In truth, money is a beautiful and alluring mistress, and an absolute, horrid lie. I probably run the risk of alienating my employers by even saying all of this, but nevertheless I felt snapped out of a coma in that store. I have left something essential, fundamental to who I am behind to pursue something that is not only unsatisfying, but ultimately unreal. I haven’t felt so sad and wonderful at the same time in a while. It is the blessed delicious hurt of tonguing a sore tooth or pressing on a knotted muscle. I feel bruised and bloody, like a survivor of a building collapse or a car accident, and I have the same sense of contrite gratitude at still being alive, the same sense of having narrowly escaped a crushing and tragic fate.

Who can say why the Lord gives us what He does? The obvious answer, of course, is that we need whatever He supplies, but sometimes it seems He gives us those things not so that we may be satisfied by them, but so that we may truly know that they do not satisfy. It is hard to say, but it seems this might have been the case for me as far as my recent “jobs” are concerned. I will undoubtedly continue the “professional” gig for a time, at least to fulfill my contract, but I am beginning to be possessed of the notion that said path is not for me. After all, money comes and goes, but the impressions we make upon our brothers may echo many lifetimes into the future. This is what writing should be about. Forgetting that was like forgetting my own name.

And I already hear the clamor: Rich, you have said this before. In fact, I can recall several posts, (this one and that, among others) in which you stated nearly the same thing. What can I say? My heart is fickle, and a liar. No doubt in a few months I will need to learn this lesson again. In the meantime, while this correction is fresh (and since this prose is awful and meandering and utterly indicative of someone who is out of practice), I will stop boring you with all of this and get on with some real writing.

May the results matter not nearly so much as the reason for the act.

***

I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

“But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel would not submit to me.

So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,
to follow their own counsels.

Oh, that my people would listen to me,
that Israel would walk in my ways!

and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”

Psalm 81 : 10 – 13, 16b

Stranger, and more beautiful

***

Fiction has long been a part of my life. There have been books historically which i have read and re-read incessantly throughout my life. When i was a child and a teenager, most of these tales took the form of fantasy or science fiction. Even fancied myself a bit of a fantasy writer at one point, and i still feel as though i could set down a rather rousing epic if i put my mind and (more importantly) my heart to it. Some period of time into my early adulthood i started shifting my reading and writing interest to more “literary” fiction, whatever that nomenclature signifies. i have begun and left unfinished no fewer than five novels, having never caught sufficient steam or momentum, or perhaps having never had the requisite discipline, to see these projects through to completion. My reading in this arena has been, for a time, rather diligent at least, and there is certainly a tremendous and nameless appeal that the fictive voice holds in my heart. It is not out of the realm of possibility that i may at some point dig up from under the earth of time and business these efforts and breathe life into them anew.

Poetry has also competed for dominance in my aesthetic sensibilities, and though i have not quite had the patience to study it as thoroughly as i ought, there are still times when it seems that the only mechanism which will do a subject justice is the poem, thus as you can see i have written my fair share of them. Most of them are at the very least elementary, and some even go so far as to be downright terrible and asinine.

Recently, however, despite my traditional attachment to these slightly more artistic forms of communication, i have begun to suspect that perhaps my gift really lies in the area of non-fiction. i have never written very much of it, save on this particular blog, and even though the bulk of my posts here can be classified as non-fiction, they still feel fictitious, at least in the sense that they are driven by narrative rather than by research. i must confess i owe at least a portion of this suspicion to my wife, who first pointed out that she found my non-fiction to be my best work. Lately i have toyed with idea of working more exclusively in this domain, and it is starting to gain sway for me. i suppose what always steered me away from writing non-fiction was a lack of qualification. i am an expert in precisely zero subjects, save perhaps the subject of myself. But perhaps this is enough. Perhaps there is enough of a story in my life – and i suspect there is, not because i have lived a particularly adventurous or meaningful life, but because i have lived a particularly rebellious one – to merit its writing. After all, God has written a rather amazing story already, having provided for me time and time again despite my unwillingness to receive that provision. i think perhaps i will stay away from fiction, at least for the time being – God is, after all, a better story-teller than i will ever be – and stick strictly to writing about my experiences with Him and the recovery He has seen fit to mercifully bring into my life. Maybe in this, at last, after a year of dabbling in essentially every variety of writing and succeeding at none, i have found my calling. Time however, will tell.

The well-known adage “truth is stranger than fiction” has a less-familiar second clause, which i find even more profound than the first. “It is because,” Twain says, “fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” If you had asked me 30 months ago what i dreamed would be “possible” for the coming years, for my personal and spiritual life, for my career, and for my marriage, i would not have been able to even begin to guess at the current shape each of those elements has in my life. i believe that the purpose of writing is to provide insight and wisdom into the life of another, and by doing so, be a force for peace, for reparation, for reconciliation. Fiction gives us a certain view of truth through its exploration of possibilities, and poetry another through its propensity for ambitious metaphor, and both can provide some measure of universality, and thus each may, in part, accomplish the objective of establishing commonality. But God has written a truth, full and glorious, that no human word can sufficiently capture, and in my case, as it is for many of us, that truth is more compelling and more exhilarating, and thus ultimately vastly more unifying, than any story or device which we have ever conceived of or read. These stories, our stories, with all of their ugly and rambunctious and supercilious components, are the stories which people most need to hear. These are the stories that will heal, because ultimately they are not about us at all. Tell yours, and i will do mine.

***

some thoughts on productivity

***

Not sure that i have ever felt quite this way before. i am profoundly stricken today with the sense that i have done something wrong, or at the very least, exorbitantly wasteful. i took the day off today, partially because i could, and partially with the motivation of spending the entire day writing. i have done this once before, and had a highly productive day. Such was not the case today. i struggled all day to get into a groove, and wound up accomplishing very little on the writing front, nor did i even manage to do any reading. i am left wondering if there was a certain threshold that i failed to reach. Was there a magic number of words that would have made a day off “worth it?” If there was, i didn’t make it there, and now that the day is nearly over, i am quite disappointed in myself. Now i know there will be responses to this with the character of encouragement or empathy, but that is truly not what i am fishing for here. i am not, in fact, seeking a response at all, merely musing on my own inability to be disciplined. If nothing else, i am merely writing this to have a sense that i have at least accomplished something today, and although that something is rather paltry, i am hoping that it at least assuages some part of the sensation of guilt at my own sluggishness. Count it a confession, to which no response is necessary. If you are reading this, consider it an encouragement unto discipline and productivity. i have lived today as if my time were infinite, and the result in my heart is rather strikingly sad. i pray that tomorrow God will grant me a more willing and diligent spirit, and though i realize that i have not “disappointed” Him per se, i have disappointed myself. These lessons are good, at times: they remind my heart that work is, in fact, a gift, a blessing. i pray this translates into a grateful attitude towards my work tomorrow.

***

Prometheus, i bid you come

***

Maybe i just didn’t make myself clear. After all, asking for a “sign” could very easily be interpreted as asking for a “sine…”

Or maybe blogging just isn’t my thing. In fact i know it isn’t, ultimately. It’s not that i don’t enjoy writing. (“Enjoy” is really the wrong word, but i am at a loss for a better one. Perhaps i could insert “fight through laboriously hoping the reward is worth the effort while,” but that seems verbose.) To some degree, i am in intense rebellion against the online culture of blogging. i can’t get into the whole wandering-digitally-around-liking-miscellaneous-posts-just-to-get-traffic-on-yours thing. Or maybe i’m just bitter because my stats peaked in June and i haven’t gotten more than a sniff since then. That’s fine with me i guess, since it means i can write anything i want here and no more than five people will ever see it.

i have said all along that it wasn’t about the popularity to me, and truly it isn’t. But it is about impact, and right now mine is about as powerful as a pillow dropped into a pool of marshmallows in a low gravity soundproof room. i have a few suspicions about the root cause of this. First of all, i have definitely lost my fire a bit in terms of commitment, and with the overwhelming amount of posts out there if you aren’t doing it every day then you practically aren’t doing it at all. It’s not as if i haven’t wanted to, i just haven’t had much to say lately. Also, though i haven’t seen every blog that exists out there, i have seen quite a few and many of them are quite consistent in their approach. This monstrosity, on the other hand, is a bit of a wandering nightmare, thematically, stylistically, and creatively. Basically the net result of this is that one day you may stumble upon a jewel that speaks to you greatly, packed with wisdom and snippets of joy and inspiration, and you may impulsively hit the “follow” button. A week later either you are going to see nothing posted, and just forget to ever check again, or you are going to see some turd of a post that has nothing to do with anything, similar to this one, and you will quickly lose interest. How to make sense of a blog that has no consistent schedule, theme, style, or mood? One day a stream-of-consciousness rant, the next some crap about baseball, the next some half-thought-out poem that has the sharp edge of an anciently dull butter knife.

i’ve lost my way. (cf. Brief instructions) And as i said in my very first post, no one is interested in following someone who is perpetually lost. Looking back over my own posts, i am sometimes staggered at how much passion and inspiration and creativity i seemed to have in earlier months. i am not saying this equated to my blog being “good” per se, but at least it was impassioned. i was convinced, absolutely persuaded that writing was my calling, not just a hobby. Now it seems to have been relegated to the category of “things i do whenever i am bored with Facebook.” i suspect that these things come in waves, but i haven’t been doing it long enough to know whether or not this is true. i only hope that it is; that this is merely a wide low trough on the way to a sharp spike of inspiration and success, and when i get to that place i will look back and know that this time was absolutely necessary, that it made me a stronger, better, more dedicated writer.

i very nearly ended this post with a sarcastic quip, which might have met with rave reviews but if i am to be true to the mantra “impact not influence,” i am forced to admit that sarcasm does very little except make you sound like a mildly clever jerk. The truth is, the difference between my writing now and when i started is source. i started this thing as a project to tap into God and His purpose for me, and since then my commitment to writing (and consequently my success at it) has waned in equal measure to my commitment to being near Him. He is, after all, the source of all good things. My feeble human brain will only produce so many relevant pieces of work, if any at all. But if i am sourced in Him, if i am absolutely committed to being in and with and near Him, then if this endeavor is supposed to meet with success, it will. In several ways, this is really the lesson i have been learning lately, a topic which i will explore more thoroughly in my next post, which will happen later today. Or tomorrow. Or maybe next week or something. Dang, now i’ve gone and used sarcasm anyway. Can’t win ’em all, i guess. This one’s a loser for sure. On to the next, then…

***

Love Letter to an Unnamed Poet

***

You are a cable,

singing alive with

Electric hum, home to an

endless Flock of perching

soontoscatter crows—

 

(Standing coldly on

pavement, built atop

Bones of greenest memories:

I alone, shivering;

ready to be home

as night falls.)

 

Birds spring ghostly up,

disintegrate like

Chimney smoke, specters, into

purple prose of sky and

I touched none of them,

none of You—

***

a slow veer

***

As a few people have been kind enough to remark, i have been posting significantly less lately. The reasons for this are myriad, however a few are worth mentioning here. Firstly, i was out of the country for about a week or so, limiting my access to the internet, although it would be disingenuous to suggest that this was much of a factor, since my virtual absence really started back in late October. Secondly, i was listening to an NPR program a few weeks back on which a poet was being interviewed. (Which one, i do not recall) This particular writer mentioned that a poem written in less than two weeks was, for her, fairly phenomenal, and in general three or four weeks was more the norm. My own tendency, though i don’t believe there is necessarily a right or wrong here, is to use primarily a stream-of-consciousness approach, and do very little editing of my own poetry. This allows for ample and abundant posting of writing, but my fear is that is hinders my ability to be critical of my work and improve upon it. In an attempt to learn from those wiser and more experienced, i have begun to let poems marinate for a while before posting now, walking away from and coming back to them two and three times. Thus rather than posting a poem immediately after the first draft is complete, i now wait at least a week to see if anything about it strikes me as naive or banal. i am not sure this has catalyzed any significant increase in quality, as was its intent, but the strategy is still young.

But all of this, while true, still merely beats about the bush. The true reason, if i may be honest here (and if i cannot here, where can i?), is i have been suffering from a tremendous lack of confidence. i have mentioned before, and thus will not belabor the point ad nauseum here, that perseverance is not one of my strengths. i had high, and almost foolishly mystical, hopes for this blog. i imagined that in no time hoards of readers would be refreshing their blogreaders salivating pavlovianly waiting for the next nugget of wisdom from my mouth, then gleefully sitting back in repose after reading, content in their knowledge of having discovered a secret prophet.

Needless to say, this has not happened, to my knowledge.

Which is good. Of course. i must admit that, though my pride does not want to do so. But i need to remind myself what the purpose of this blog is, and it is not self-glorification. My stated intent from conception was to use this space for two purposes: to hone my talents and practice my craft, and to glorify the One who gave them to me in the first place. Interestingly, in neither case is confidence particularly necessary, and in fact in both cases it may strangely be a deficit and a hinderance.

A good friend once told me never to apologize for not writing. i have no intention of doing that here, at least not to my few readers. Nevertheless i do wish to admit that my heart has been in the wrong place, and thus apologize for the flaw at root in my absence. In other words, i have no specific regret about not writing, merely about the heart condition that my lack of effort writing indicates. But this, too, will ultimately be used by the Lord for His purposes. Dry seasons, too, are necessary that rain may have its desired effect when it at length blessedly falls. So my lack of confidence in my abilities in no excuse for ceasing to attempt. In fact, it is all the more reason i should be putting forth yet greater effort. God will use what he chooses, and most of the time he chooses those with little or no ability at all, that it may be His strength that shines through. May it be so here, as well.

***

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.    – John 7 : 18

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  – 2 Corinthians 12 : 9

Brief instructions on how to be a novelist.

***

First, make coffee. Better yet, go get some. Public places better for some reason anyway. Observe people. No TV to watch. Something like that. Pack up the computer, power cord, notebook containing scrambled junk you’ve taken down in the guise of notes. Don’t bring anything else. Phone is necessary unfortunately. For emergencies only though. Got everything. Check again. Don’t leave anything behind else if you come back you won’t leave again. Think of a place to go that has accessible power outlets, good parking, not too crowded, few distractions. Absolutely no TVs. No shortage of Starbuckses around. (Side note: figure out plural of Starbucks eventually. But not now. Too distracting. Stay on target.) Those’ll do in a pinch, but local would be better. Connect with the city in which you live. Got it. Nearby, quiet, unknown. Grab bag. Lock door. Drive there. Use this time to plan few blessed hours of writing. Leave radio off. Distracting.

Parking is easy. Place is not popular, which is good because no one is ever there but bad because it will probably go out of business soon. For now, it is the hideout. Tables are scarce, small, nearly inadequate, but almost romantically so. This will do. Order coffee. Make yourself go to the bathroom first like a toddler just to get it out of the way. Don’t want an interruption later. Plug in computer. Open Word. Avoid habitual tendency to open the internet first. Browsers are black holes. Only use for reference later. Like the phone, emergencies only. Get out alleged notes. Start typing.

Wait.

Take two seconds. Breathe deeply. Close your eyes. Hear it. Let it come. It will burst into your mind, into your heart, it will erupt through your body into your arms and out through your fingers in wild blue sparks, in wordstorms, sentenceriots, pagequakes. It will possess your hands. Words will flow like rain off of rooftops. They will scream at you and pound the inside of your skull. They will be so ecstatic and forceful that you wlil hardly be able to record them fast enough. Soon. Inspiration, muse, call it what you will. You have touched it before, felt it’s fire, it’s divinity. You have rubbed elbows with it’s opulence, consorted with it’s trusted companionship, been held by it’s loving embrace. Nothing like it in the world.

Only wait. Any moment now.

Any moment.

Something in you says, just start typing. But typing what? No, it must be right. Must be glorious and flawless. Miraculous. Candid and astute, spewing verve and panache, wit and patience, demonstrating unequivocally that you are the writer that was destined to come. It must be this, and nothing else. Merely good will not do.

So you must wait. As long as it takes.

(While you’re waiting, open the internet. See what’s up. Won’t hurt. Just for a moment. Get right back off. Really, you will this time. Promise yourself.)

Dark outside. Time’s up. Frown. Close Word document. (Select “No” when it asks if you want to save.) Close notebook. Close computer. Close your eyes. Sigh audibly.

Try again tomorrow.

***

R.E.W.

***