See how she has started again and again on this assignment? See the way she's been chewing at her bottom lip, watching the clock go by, vowing not to get into that warm bed that's been calling to her until it's done? See how the tendons in her right wrist bulge and twist and shimmy as she scrawls illegible letters and punctuation, how her elbow occasionally knocks against the armrest and she doesn't even notice? She thinks I don't notice, that I only dutifully fulfill my obligation until I dry out or go empty and then she'll throw me away, disappointed. She'll get another utensil, pissed her concentration was interrupted, and she'll make the ink bleed out of it the way she tries to make words come out of her.
There is no telling her that sometimes ghosts just won't give blood, that a story just isn't there or that a sentence can't be pulled from thin air. She keeps pushing, though, she keeps pushing, her scratches against paper reminding me of a desperate cat clawing to get in. The way she keeps going I know she can smell it and now I remember she told a friend over coffee once that it smelled like Christmas pine needles, New Year's candles and a new baby all at once.
But what is it? What does she sit down and search for until her back aches and she's forgotten what food is? When I am with her, jammed in a pocket or tapping against her thumb while she pauses just long enough to bring her head up and surface for air, I can hear her talking. This conversation, the conversation of self-to-self, the sacred confessional, I am privy to and she is unabashed about speaking out loud. Speaking to herself, alone, unaware and unconcerned because this needs to come out. Whatever it is is not for tools to understand but is only for hearts to know and I can see from the slight sheen on the forehead that this is the kind of work that only hearts can do.
And what is she saying? She's saying that sometimes writing is pretty shoes that do not fit right, that hurt, but she'll mold herself to them to pull off the look. And, other times, maybe secretly even most of the time, the words flow freely like blood from a freshly field dressed deer, ready for the eating.
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So, this assignment is the pretty shoes one?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a great believer in writing as high romantic heroism--overcoming all those dreadful obstacles to create that glowing pearl. I like it to be fun, and usually for me, even when I'm having problems, my brain is still getting its pleasure centers nicely stoked.
I was thinking you were the heroic sort right to the end of this when you turned, very gracefully, on a dime into that very handsome last sentence.
After sleeping on it, I realise I had it all wrong in my first comment. How did that happen?
ReplyDelete"And, other times, maybe secretly even most of the time, the words flow freely like blood from a freshly field dressed deer, ready for the eating."
That is just the kind of high romantic heroism I was reading you as not indulging in--the hunter brings down her stag after days of roaming through the mist over dale and moor and watches the dark blood of her conquest drip into the peat and heather, huntress Diana once again triumphant.
Heroic view of the writer's life!