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time to write words around me in a circle. time to circle myself with words. time to embody the process of memory in this deeply flawed process. time to map out my intangibles. scan the intangible tissue. maybe we’ll find something. maybe. do we want to find something? do we want, at least, to know whatever the hell it is that’s going on? maybe we do. or i don’t know. damn that subtext! what’s going on down there? i don’t know what this thing is or why i keep doing it, but i do it nonetheless.
at least, i hope to.
that swarming, shivering nausea of wanting to create something but no spark. no concept, low or high or sober. worse still, no investment. nothing that draws me in. nothing that energizes me in the creative process. just: i should want to do this. i should feel energized by some aspect of this process. why don’t i want to do what i want to do? it’s tiresome. what’s more: it hurts. it feels like another way i’ve failed myself, my loved ones, my audience (which might only be four people on livejournal but that’s a lot better than i was doing before i was on livejournal, do not doubt), the ghost of my friend, the ghosts of several friendships, the ghost of my little gray cat. the world at large. and god, i’m so sick of feeling like this. why can’t i stop feeling like this?
i want to take pleasure in a craft again. i want to write something that stirs my passion, that makes me feel like there is a reason i, specifically, have taken up the call to write: i want to feel mystery and magic in making art, drawing together elements, invoking that power i only understand in using it creatively: i know it cannot be all there is to the creative process: refinement, editing toward (if not into) perfection, scrutiny and
all of that shit i think i’m so good at. but what good is editing when i’m starved for a spark?
something!
anything!
okay, not “anything.” i’ve gotten quite a few unnerving glimpses into that gift horse’s infected-to-the-point-of-abscess mouth. but: there really is a wide range of plausible options before you get to camp anything. i hope.
what it was like to write those novels before i was even out of braces. up so late with the last pages, sky gone navy in the front room couch, shivering, my small body rattled with its first experience of genuine creative power. my first fix: baby’s first addiction. was i self medicating with fiction? i guess i was: it’s served that purpose for me, though it’s a lot more complicated than that. so i run the numbers: maybe a project. probably a project. something large. something larger than me. that’ll put things in perspective. right? right?!
just: what’s a project? haven’t things gotten a little too post-modern for projects? isn’t it more: work this fragment, bait that red herring, lead that white elephant out of the storage locker for a good strut around the study. because all these beautiful little pieces, they ought to assemble somehow. just keep retrying the orientation, press it in a little bit harder, maybe use the hammer, sometimes something will snap into place, sometimes you’ll find a good fit: but where does it end up? instead of four tiny word-bobbles, i’ve got two tiny word-bobbles and a third, slightly larger, slightly less manageable, bobble of words.
or 900+ megabytes of television show dialog and directives that just sit there, gradually becoming dated. i need something. i need something. i’ve got things but they might not be the right things. i’ve got things but who even knows what they are? i’ve got things: who am i to receive such things with other than unambiguous gratitude, what am i selfish? what am i stupid? what am i some kind of middle-life vortex of insatiable hungers directed at nothing in particular?
except, wrong: there is a particular. of sorts. of a fashion. i mean, not really, but then again, isn't there always? and sometimes i think i must rid myself of the mechanisms around it before it eats me alive. but i’m stupid, or self-destructive, and both, so i continue: to wallow hopelessly in that which is surely killing me. for the record, i feel that there has been far too much unintended rhyming in this non-metered text.
so: i could make it a game.
manifest younger self. arrange a little playdate. play some good music, set candles to “teenager,” write love letters to goddesses with whom i should never presume to be so familiar. play dress up: with my clothes! with ben’s clothes! except not ben's work clothes! with that one sparkly scarf i ended up by accident whoops sorry sarah! anoint myself with consecrated oils. map out the heavens on the inside cover of my favorite kierkegaard book. drink pink sparkle tea. only ever wear blue on tuesday. mark out a fairy circle with acorns and starfish, stick peacock feathers in my hair, march around with a drum and a mirror. kiss the limitless! do naughty things with the limitless! i won’t write. i won’t feel very good about the whole affair in a few hours time, either. but i could make it a game.
fill a glass-jar with single-word chits. develop a(nother) universal power deck. devise a way to reliably ink out one hundred word pieces longhand and glue trigger words in the upper margins. keep a sentence-a-day journal. a journal of objects. a journal of anxieties. a journal of bumps and feels. just keep messing around with define. start a journal in which i only write sideways. a haiku a day! a question a day! i should definitely be doing at least one once-a-day thing. what happens is i get a lot of interesting but unnecessary detritus about winter, because the thing-a-day practices might make it as far as the second week of march, if i am disciplined. oh, mercy. lordy do.
30.
uncarved block:
the brook, the wind,
the fresh burnt field.
40.
rain on my windshield
heavy cloud sky
moving east
and then at the same time, it’s not as dire as all that.
it never is.
might that be the problem?
at least, i hope to.
that swarming, shivering nausea of wanting to create something but no spark. no concept, low or high or sober. worse still, no investment. nothing that draws me in. nothing that energizes me in the creative process. just: i should want to do this. i should feel energized by some aspect of this process. why don’t i want to do what i want to do? it’s tiresome. what’s more: it hurts. it feels like another way i’ve failed myself, my loved ones, my audience (which might only be four people on livejournal but that’s a lot better than i was doing before i was on livejournal, do not doubt), the ghost of my friend, the ghosts of several friendships, the ghost of my little gray cat. the world at large. and god, i’m so sick of feeling like this. why can’t i stop feeling like this?
i want to take pleasure in a craft again. i want to write something that stirs my passion, that makes me feel like there is a reason i, specifically, have taken up the call to write: i want to feel mystery and magic in making art, drawing together elements, invoking that power i only understand in using it creatively: i know it cannot be all there is to the creative process: refinement, editing toward (if not into) perfection, scrutiny and
all of that shit i think i’m so good at. but what good is editing when i’m starved for a spark?
something!
anything!
okay, not “anything.” i’ve gotten quite a few unnerving glimpses into that gift horse’s infected-to-the-point-of-abscess mouth. but: there really is a wide range of plausible options before you get to camp anything. i hope.
what it was like to write those novels before i was even out of braces. up so late with the last pages, sky gone navy in the front room couch, shivering, my small body rattled with its first experience of genuine creative power. my first fix: baby’s first addiction. was i self medicating with fiction? i guess i was: it’s served that purpose for me, though it’s a lot more complicated than that. so i run the numbers: maybe a project. probably a project. something large. something larger than me. that’ll put things in perspective. right? right?!
just: what’s a project? haven’t things gotten a little too post-modern for projects? isn’t it more: work this fragment, bait that red herring, lead that white elephant out of the storage locker for a good strut around the study. because all these beautiful little pieces, they ought to assemble somehow. just keep retrying the orientation, press it in a little bit harder, maybe use the hammer, sometimes something will snap into place, sometimes you’ll find a good fit: but where does it end up? instead of four tiny word-bobbles, i’ve got two tiny word-bobbles and a third, slightly larger, slightly less manageable, bobble of words.
or 900+ megabytes of television show dialog and directives that just sit there, gradually becoming dated. i need something. i need something. i’ve got things but they might not be the right things. i’ve got things but who even knows what they are? i’ve got things: who am i to receive such things with other than unambiguous gratitude, what am i selfish? what am i stupid? what am i some kind of middle-life vortex of insatiable hungers directed at nothing in particular?
except, wrong: there is a particular. of sorts. of a fashion. i mean, not really, but then again, isn't there always? and sometimes i think i must rid myself of the mechanisms around it before it eats me alive. but i’m stupid, or self-destructive, and both, so i continue: to wallow hopelessly in that which is surely killing me. for the record, i feel that there has been far too much unintended rhyming in this non-metered text.
so: i could make it a game.
manifest younger self. arrange a little playdate. play some good music, set candles to “teenager,” write love letters to goddesses with whom i should never presume to be so familiar. play dress up: with my clothes! with ben’s clothes! except not ben's work clothes! with that one sparkly scarf i ended up by accident whoops sorry sarah! anoint myself with consecrated oils. map out the heavens on the inside cover of my favorite kierkegaard book. drink pink sparkle tea. only ever wear blue on tuesday. mark out a fairy circle with acorns and starfish, stick peacock feathers in my hair, march around with a drum and a mirror. kiss the limitless! do naughty things with the limitless! i won’t write. i won’t feel very good about the whole affair in a few hours time, either. but i could make it a game.
fill a glass-jar with single-word chits. develop a(nother) universal power deck. devise a way to reliably ink out one hundred word pieces longhand and glue trigger words in the upper margins. keep a sentence-a-day journal. a journal of objects. a journal of anxieties. a journal of bumps and feels. just keep messing around with define. start a journal in which i only write sideways. a haiku a day! a question a day! i should definitely be doing at least one once-a-day thing. what happens is i get a lot of interesting but unnecessary detritus about winter, because the thing-a-day practices might make it as far as the second week of march, if i am disciplined. oh, mercy. lordy do.
uncarved block:
the brook, the wind,
the fresh burnt field.
40.
rain on my windshield
heavy cloud sky
moving east
and then at the same time, it’s not as dire as all that.
it never is.
might that be the problem?
