so here goes something. or something.

I write to find out how I feel and what I think; I avoid writing because I’m afraid to find out. Writing is discovery. It’s acknowledgment. When I start writing with a vague feeling or thought, I usually find out much more than I expect. And then it’s there in front of me, and I have to see it; face it; know it; accept it. Ignorance is bliss, or something, so I don’t write. Writing is saying it out loud, and there are some things that you just can’t say out loud. Not now, not yet, not ever. But I’m trying out this thing where I’m more vulnerable. And that means writing. Writing the things I don’t know, the things I do know, the things I find out, the things I want to find out. Being vulnerable means knowing myself and sharing it. Knowing myself first comes from writing. Writing is easy; knowing is hard. Sharing is almost impossible. Sharing means other people can know you. And that’s scary.

a year in review, sort of

It’s been almost a year and half and I finally found the perfect song. After feeling the impact of every sad/love/sad-love song like it was written just for me but knowing it wasn’t—there was no love; god, was there absolutely no love—I found it, and it’s bittersweet in every cliché way, and it’s funny how little it all crosses my mind now except every now and again and when I talk about it, it’s not like stabbing myself in the chest, and do we ever really learn from anything, anyway, or are we—am I—doomed to go on and on and on like we do, hurting people in our way, getting hurt by people who put themselves in our way, or maybe they didn’t ask to get in our way at all. But we can’t stop, cutting a swath on our way to what? to success? to accomplishment? to freedom? I hope you don’t end up in a ditch somewhere, but I guess you got what you wanted, and I finally feel free and happy and I wasn’t listening at the Christmas church service, but the one thing I did hear was when the pastor said that it’s almost a new year—and once it’s here, there’s no point in worrying about everything that happened in the year past; it’s over; no point in dwelling on it, and he’s right, and there are so many things I’m tired of dwelling on and there are some things you have to do and be done with and it’s hard, certainly, but it’s Over. and Done. and if they weren’t you surely would have buried me by now. Germany probably saved my life or at least my sanity. If I hadn’t of had to slow down I don’t know where I would be right now or how burned out or how strung out or fried—I couldn’t have kept going, and as I’ve said more than once in the last 48 hours, both teary-eyed and drunkenly in the dark and sleepy-eyed and laughing in the sunshine, this year has to be better than last.

I’m finally coming to terms with the idea/fact/concept that I’m not the same as I was, or maybe I’m still the same but I’m allowing myself to feel and be the things I never let myself before. I worked so hard to be so tough, and so strong, but I don’t think I ever was, but I’m tired of berating myself for everything I think I shouldn’t be because, as it all turns out, I’m soft. And I’m weak. Metaphorically and literally, and I’ve got scraped up knees to prove it. We get fucked, we get fucked with and we get fucked up but I guess we do learn at some point to know better, or at least our reaction time gets a little quicker each time and maybe the universe wants to balance itself or it’s just playing a terribly slow game of see-saw since the end of 2010 started to slide down and down and down and the end of 2011 started to tip up and up and maybe not quite so up, but after all, she sings, it won’t take long to fall in love, and starting the first few days of the new year with the people I love, nursing a hangover; eating chilaquiles and cinnamon rolls; sitting in a tattoo shop; laying on the couch watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is all I really ever wanted to do.

Nightlighttenment

You stop reading for a while, maybe accidently, maybe purposely, maybe both. You maneuver—both subtly and sharply—into a land where there is no time for such things; exhaustion wins, iPhone games overrule. Then you read something great and think, Holy Shit. You read an article in Wired and think, My god, that was well put-together. You aimlessly—finally—browse those piled-up, unread issues of Harper’s and laugh, almost cry, and remark—out loud—to yourself, “Fuck.”

For the past few weeks I’ve been doing everything in the dark; someone flipped on the switch, and I now see, Oh yes, everything’s much better this way.

It’s baffling I could forget the enjoyment of words, the turns of phrases, the dichotomy of diction. Do you write to live or live to write? I’m sure that’s some well-worn cliché—but suspend the rules: Isn’t it both? Ignoring the financial implication and taking it literally: Wouldn’t I die if I didn’t write?
Don’t I start to every time I forsake it or ignore it because I’m too busy; too stressed; too distracted? So I feel like I’m experiencing the Age of Enlightenment from a short story about a father, a fishing hook and a rabbit; from a list of descriptions of the sun compiled by Alzheimer’s patients; from an essay on modernity’s twisted take on happiness and suffering that reflects what I’ve been saying all along but of course says it a thousand times more eloquently and articulately. And—because I am Enlightened!—I must finally write, because I’m writing in my head as I shower, afraid I’m going to lose the Enlightment!, so I must get it down on paper (albeit virtual paper); must overuse semi-colons because Why not? this is writing and it can be whatever I want. I could BEGIN WRITING IN CAPS IF I PLEASED, MERELY BECAUSE THE OPTION HAS BEEN PLACED BEFORE ME AND IT IS YET ONE MORE WAY TO CONVEY MEANING.

But of course, the fervor, as it must, as it always does, won’t last. It will retreat slowly, unnoticed as time passes, because Enlightenment! cannot last—if it did I might die from sheer pleasure—because it comes in waves, rolling in and out, sometimes the tide lasting longer than others. So I hope, probably naively and uselessly, that this one can last; that I can read and recognize the well-done as I devour; that I can appreciate the crafting and refining—the shaping of the big: the theme, the angle, and the minutiae: the nuances, the subtleties, that without them would render words just letters on paper (virtual or otherwise)—before the light gets turned off, and I am once more unaware.