Writing is a very solitary endeavor. It requires time and space and concentration. For me, it’s really easy to get lost in my own head; to become hyper-aware of the process, the metacognition that’s taking place, the rabbit hole, the infinity mirror of writing about thinking about writing about thinking ad nauseam and ad infinitum….. It’s also really easy to let the self-criticism shut the process down. Not everything is worth writing about, not everything needs to be put out there in to the world. But then, I’m reminded of my advanced fiction workshop in which we were told we may need to write an entire page to get one or two sentences worth keeping or an idea worth pursuing.
This morning (actually a little after midnight) I wrote about a text conversation I was having with my friend in Omaha – it was going to be a longer post about the usefulness and danger of anger (she’s pissed over her breakup). Because it was feeling sanctimonious, I opted not to continue, and left it in the draft pile. This morning (morning proper, after breakfast) I sat outside with Nick and read. I jotted down a new line here and there and wrote a new poem. I came in to clean up, and while my body was busy with chores, my mind was still writing. I kept hearing words and phrases. There was a rhythm to it. I started thinking about a dinner I had in San Francisco years ago. I remembered the color of the walls of the restaurant, what I ate, the neighborhood, some of the conversation. What was a bit more vague were the general circumstances and what else was going on in my life. I know I was out there for a conference. I know I had met Dave Eggers. I have no idea what year it was or even what conference it was. The poem I was composing as I thought about these things was being built off of the visual and tactile details. The fact that the bigger picture was missing bothered me – how did this fit in my life? I came over to my laptop to look up literary / book conferences and San Francisco. The absurdity of researching my own past hit me pretty hard. That absurdity became yet another poem – or perhaps a narrative that would spawn a dozen poems. I started to write down the cities I’ve visited and then look up the conference / trade show dates. I started to capture the things that stood out: the awkwardness I felt the first time I had a nice dinner by myself, my colleague’s poor (and infuriating) decision to go for a bike ride on her lunch break. My first conference was in Colorado Springs, my last trade show was this past January in Anaheim. In between, I’ve gone to Chicago, San Diego, Missoula, Orlando, Washington DC, Boston, Atlanta, Baltimore, New York, New Orleans, San Antonio, and maybe one or two other places including Philly, State College, and Harrisburg.
I only got through a few quick details about Colorado Springs and Baltimore before I stopped, a little mentally tired from the process of recall. I shifted gears, slightly, to write this brief post about writing and whatever that other thing will turn out to be. The thing that is striking me (there are a few actually) is how traveling to those places pulled me out of my everyday life – how vivid the memory of the extra-ordinary experiences are compared to whatever came before and after – to the point of not even being sure what years certain things happened. I could tell you details about the trip, maybe a few details surrounding the trip, but I’m not sure I could tell you what else was going on in my life (or other people’s lives) at that time. I could tell you that on a trip to New Orleans a tall, and somewhat muscular woman who I didn’t know, but someone else knew, popped the balloon hat I was wearing with her cigarette (yes, I was wearing a balloon hat). I could tell you that a co-worker and I were supposed to meet for breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, but we were out too late the night before, overslept, and barely made it to the editorial meeting we were having that morning. I could tell you that the trip home was a nightmare and involved canceled flights and getting stuck in the DC train station at 4 in the morning and missing my daughter’s birthday. What I didn’t remember was that the trip took place five days after my wedding – I would have sworn it was a different year. I feel pretty shitty about that – I can’t imagine leaving on a work trip so soon after a big event like that. This made me think a little bit about how we weren’t the traditional young couple newlyweds – and maybe that somehow made it ok. We had been together for seven years, we were raising a daughter (she would have been turning ten at the time). In hindsight, it feels wrong to have gone, to have left my family like that.
Just before finishing the paragraph or two I had written about my Omaha friend and anger, I had started to read a few articles on the link between anger and shame. One article stated that shame is the only emotion that can bind with other emotions. You can feel all of the other emotions and still also feel shame. As I’m writing and recollecting, I’m trying to pay attention to the feelings that are associated with the memories and also the feelings that I have at being able to remember or having forgotten (the meta-thinking). Reading the poems I’ve been reading has made me feel a bit of shame – as though I’ve walked through significant parts of my life not paying attention, or paying attention to the wrong things. The few relationships I’ve had in the past few years, especially the one with my ex-fiancee, B, seem to be marked by a hyper-awareness… an intensity of spirit and vision. Maybe that’s because they were all young relationships that hadn’t been dulled by time. Or maybe I’m maturing in to a person who is learning to really appreciate the richness in the smallest details. Maybe this is a form of psychological nesting – a preparing of sorts. I want my everyday life to be full of vivid images, sounds, smells, and tastes. I want to be able to see, feel, and remember the extraordinary in what others forget to notice. I want to live a life defined by the oxymoron “calm intensity.”
I have no idea if any of these attempts at recollection will make me a better writer or better partner or better person. I feel like I am uncovering some personal truths – things I might want to explore and share. The how, with whom, and in what form are yet to be determined. Getting it down is the first step, and maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll craft something good or useful in the process. At the very least, I can practice what I can only describe as seeing.