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| Big Sur Jade |
I've got to get back to writing because I'm increasingly lost without it. Is that possible? Is being lost something that grows from lack or is it a steady state of darkness? Entanglements, dark covers, woods. The wash of water, tides, tears, oceans. Drowning. The elements. You can find dark green nephrite jade in Big Sur where the surf pounds the mountains.
My necklace is cool against my breastbone, smooth beneath fingers.
Claire Dederer wrote Because the finishing is the part that makes the artist. The artist must be monster enough not just to start the work, but to complete it. And to commit all the little savageries that lie in between.
Little savageries. I know what they are, as do you, writers. I have felt incapable of committing them even as I've contemplated them. Contemplation, though, has gotten me nowhere. Nowhere. Lost. I'm obsessed with the way the mind works, its trickery. I've been told I'm a disgrace by a person with whom I was once close, tied to, yoked. I suppose it's true, but not in the way this person believes. It's the lack of little savageries that make the disgrace in my mind. The hacking out of lost. The commitment to the savagery is what makes the clearing.
The only way I can actually get words on the page is to believe in the moment that no one will ever read what I’m writing. Commit those savageries. You can make adjustments later. But if you are born to write, as you surely are, then you will feel most lost when not writing. For me, I’m stuck in all ways until I can process through writing. I post on my blog not just in the pursuit of community but also of sanity. That is not an overestimatation. I love you and you are a brilliant, utterly original writer. And you have so much to tell us, so much to excavate, and only you can express it the way you do. I am so grateful you write. We need your words, your savageries.
ReplyDeleteYes. Write. Write like your life depends on it.
ReplyDeleteI could not say it any better than Rosemarie did. You are a crazy-good writer. You humble me. You knock me out and you restore my soul.
ReplyDeleteI'll just send my love and kisses now and shut up.
Write.
AAAAAAAArgh! Blogger ate my comment!
ReplyDeleteSuffice to say I certainly believe in being lost without writing. For me it's an anchor without which I would feel utterly adrift. To do serious writing, which demands the savageries, is another level entirely and one I don't pretend to attain on a daily basis -- but I think you are much better at being frank and revealing and telling your truths.
With the others, I re-iterate - we need your savageries - you are in grace absolutely and you fine-tune your grace and share it with us.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am ever grateful.
For me - I MUST swim - there's no other option. My colleagues are unsafe unless I have swam, really swam, in the morning before I show up at my desk. I swam 90 minutes this morning. And would have swam longer except they do expect me to show up sometime reasonable :)
Go and lose your tides in a bath of words.
Love
I paint every day. When I am not in the mood, or afraid, I work on areas of the canvas that are big and plain, or have repetative patterns that are boring to do. Just so I am painting. In time, I find myself sidling up to the savageries, or, in the middle of them before I know it. Then: BOOM: I'm a monster
ReplyDeletebrilliant practice
DeleteFuck, I love this. It's the little savageries I run from. I've lived in a state of fear and avoidance my whole life. It's why I'm not a writer.
ReplyDeleteA disgrace? Fuck that. Pff.
Grace. Not “dis” grace. This is what I’ve found here. Words that mean something. Honesty. Pain. Love. Sorrow. Joy. Anger. Laughter. As for the writing, it is an integral part of you. It will always be there when you need it to be. Sending love. Rest, friend.
ReplyDeleteYou were meant to Write surely as you were meant to Breathe, you do it so Beautifully and I enjoy the reading of it. Tearing down anyone verbally by calling them a disgrace is the only thing I personally find to be disgraceful. I find Grace here too when I come... nothing dis about it! Virtual Hugs... and Write yourself out of the Darkness so you do not endure being Lost for long.
ReplyDeleteyes, yes, to the comments above.
ReplyDeleteI know, for myself, that reading motivates my writing. I'm not primarily a writer, like you, but it so important for me to express myself with words. I've always done it -- dreamed of being a 'writer' even as a child. The ups and downs, ins and outs of creative expression are at the heart of it. Embrace it and know that the words will come.
Yes. Exactly.
ReplyDelete