I
can’t say for sure where my head is these days. I wrote a thing in 2017. I
wrote a page a day for 365 days and ended up with a book – the journal of
Sillyheart – a year in her life. When I met her I thought we’d only be spending
a month together. The initial premise of the writing exercise proposed to me by
a dear friend was to write a page a day for the month of January to get the
creative juices flowing. It worked. I completed the month and I felt like a
million bucks. One dreary Sunday I’m driving with my big sister in her mini-van
along the back road to town for groceries and I’m rambling on like a crazy
person about my meager accomplishment. She looks at me and said, “You did a month.
Why not go all year? That’d be a book.” It socked me in the eyeballs. I took
her suggestion to heart and kept going and just like that Sillyheart was my new
best friend, my most important preoccupation. The more I wrote the thicker the
stack of paper became. I experienced moments of sheer terror and intimidation
by what I was doing. It was the largest piece of work I’d ever worked on and
finished. Ever. A poem, easy. A short story, okay. But, a book? Man. What a
rush. I wrote one small little piece in the middle but other than that I haven’t
been able to write a word. I have a story knocking around in my head but I can’t
get it on paper. I’ve tried – first person perspective, third person. It isn’t
coming. I don’t want to force it so I’ve let it be. For now. I’ll try back again
when my head is clear of cobwebs. I really want to write it though. I hope it
doesn’t wander off and pick another writer to dictate.
I
miss Sillyheart. I had a dream last night that I started the editing process.
It might be her way of telling me to get off my sad sack and get back to work.
I thought maybe distancing myself from the binder her life currently lives in
would be good for me. I have come to the conclusion that distance isn’t what we
need, it’s togetherness. I’m not really finished with her yet, I’m not supposed
to be focusing on other stories because we still have miles to go. There are
400 plus pages to tackle and they aren’t going to edit themselves. Now, anyone
who loves me will tell you I am no editor and I am brutally aware there are
many many pages where I did not do my best work. The point was to get something
down. To maintain the rhythm and routine. It was important to me to write even
if it was a bunch of bloop. Anything can be fixed. It’s a big job but it has to
be done. I’m more nervous about the edit than I was the actual writing. The
bonus – Sillyheart entrusted me with a year of her life. I didn’t let her down.
She has faith in me. I’ve lost a little of it in myself but the second I regain
it, all edits go.
If
anyone has any words of wisdom or advice on editing, I’m all ears.
While
I am waiting for my head to level and my life to stop veering sideways I wrote
a poem. I don’t know if it’s anything special but it felt good to clack a
little.
In
propinquity,
Nic
***
As For God
As
for God, you see he was
just
too busy interpreting the
all
the sounds and silence of
appearing
and disappearing
… meanwhile
I
am left to my own devices
to
eulogize the gray page
the
space I can no longer fill.
It
once was the busy intersection
of
my humanity and the practice
of
storytelling – it’s sudden stop
staged
as a singular defiance …
if
you want the cold hard truth
it
was the eventual death of my father
that
halted my life’s (un)important work.
How
could I contend with a meaningful
existence
in the wake of such an absence?
It’s
a daunting task for anyone I suppose
crippling
for those who are tasked to make
something
out of thin air.
As for God, you see he was
too
busy claiming my loved one to consider
the
domino effect down here, the gray page
the
head-buzzing astral angst dulling down
my thunderous
heart.
I
long for the acoustics of metaphorical
impulses,
premature departures, episodic
hard
joys, a glittering nocturnal view,
subliminal motifs, in place of a
rose
ostentatiously
placed at the tomb of my sadness.
It
all leaves too much time to interrogate the past
and
little time for telling tales by heart.
As for God, you see he paid no mind
to
it
all because he told me once, maybe in a dream,
he’d
never give me more than I could handle.
This gray page is proof he is
capable of
fiction
too.
