Write

I have this peculiar characteristic, which I know I’ve mentioned a couple of times before (like: in this post), but which strikes me as so particularly incompetent I find myself curiously revisiting it time and time again. Especially in those Time Agains where I feel it necessary to make excuses, such as now. I have found colourful ways to word this phenomenon of being, this sad habit, characteristic, blip in the mien, this trait I would like to paint as a shameful anomaly, not as a product of ill-wit and lethargy: in poetic terms, in sultry prose, in –
have I started again?
can you understand the game that causes me to heave up this vacuous carcass of a sigh and declare it:

When I really need to write, I have no words.

Hmmm, you see? Didn’t that come off poetically? I actually like that. I can say that and pretend that I am not ineffectual in my craft, not in the least a procrastinator wallowing in my own sloth, not even a sloth wallowing in the swamp of my own indecision. It comes off beautifully. It even – the blissful irony! – allows me to write something. I can produce something, I can prove my value by virtue of my own ill-proven state! It is unbelievable in its effectiveness, it is supreme.

But it doesn’t help.

Because I am kept restless by the thoughts which pressed me to word them, which depended on my supposed skills as a Conveyor of Thought, Distributor of Meaning, Purveyor of Words. Enlightenment, understanding, depression, contentment, confusion – I held them, scintillating and marvelous, and they said Tell! and I replied wait. They said express! and I said I’m busy. They said Help others know – and I complained I was distracted, I wanted watermelon, that seemed taxing, and I was tired. Those thoughts, those truths, those experiences that, voiceless, drew up a contract with me when we first met in an unspoken declaration of promise:

What you have been privileged to feel, you are obliged to share

To write. Too right. I have squandered time and health. I have been selfish. I have been frightened. I have suspected a revelation of my inadequacies as a writer when truly pushed to the pen, and used this unjustly to justify my inaction. I have also made a good long blog post of it. But I will snub the blog post and Do Right. I Will Write.

Luckily I have friends who write beautiful art without excuses, who I am startled to realize still read my misgivings despite the fact that the poems in their heads surpass the poems in my hand. Something awoken, the vivid russet soil they unearth in their mental excavations settles beside the dust of my dilapidated words. Luckily I have a sister who would think well of me were I to write drivel, coat it in syrup, and sprinkle it with nonsense. Every time I settle into this inept state, I am shaken out of it by the surprise that, they actually read. Then, I must write, for them I must write well, because they read.

But come, let’s dig a threepenny trail together. Only this time, we’re digging up.

Can I keep this promise? I may have to put it in writing.