Exactly one year ago, I wrote the following words:
It takes a village to raise a family; it takes a forest to write a book.
They are true, both of those statements. At least if you hope to do either (raise a family, write a book) as well as possible.
I can’t speak to the former, but I can certainly talk about the latter, having it done it (depending on what counts and how one counts) at least four times.
And I can attest to the rush of adrenaline, the joy of attainment, the sense of closure, crossing that proverbial finish line.
And not just the thrill of accomplishment, that box checked, that mission completed, but the fact that you are still alive; you lived to see it through. I don’t expect anyone who has not experienced the ecstasy and exhaustion (physical, spiritual) of undertaking such an ill-advised, audacious adventure to comprehend such a seemingly inane observation. But it’s true: once you are more than half-way into a project, you actually worry about it, you really do go there: What if I die before I finish; what if I’m not alive to see the reward of all this solitary effort? All kinds of questions, all of which beg more questions.
Question: Who has the temerity to sit down and write a book?
Answer: People who want to, people who need to.
It’s that simple, that impossible. But to think there are people who may want to actually read it? That’s where it gets tricky. Or not, actually. In a sense, getting it done is the ultimate objective, and the only thing the writer can control. It’s the only thing the writer can measure himself against. Although it’s more than that; it has to be, or else it would remain hidden, inside a diary intended for an audience of one. So it’s equal parts faith and compulsion that enables one to navigate the choppy waters of putting it all on the page, for public viewing.
In any event, I was flush with that fulfillment exactly one year ago. I did it; I’d made it (in at least two senses of the word).
Even then, I understood (from experience): it can’t –and shouldn’t– go out into the world until it’s ready.
Question: How do you know when it’s ready?
Answer: Who knows.
Any writer worth anything is seldom, if ever, satisfied with the finished product. That’s not vanity, it’s integrity. It’s not about the work or even the writer; it’s about respect and awe for the act of creation, and trying to get it exactly right.
If you had told me, one year ago, that I would be working on and revising the manuscript for another twelve months…I probably would have believed it. No point in putting in all that effort if you aren’t willing to put in all the effort. All it takes.
And, as always, it seems incredibly pretentious and unsatisfying to discuss it. Who wants to read a writer talking about how and why he writes? I don’t (unless it’s a writer I admire, and even then, it’s usually the same routine, similar words from people doing identical things: that fact is at once comforting and intimidating).
As ever, it’s never over until it’s over. But I’m working on it. The work remains in progress, and we’ll see where we stand a year from today.
L’amour de l’art fait perdre l’amour vrai.
I did not say that.
Although that is the sort of thing I might say, since I am the sort who feels obliged to quote the books I’ve read and I allow art to remind me how to relate to myself.
The love of art means loss of real love.
Some people, sometimes, choose to make their lives more complicated. Life, sometimes, decides for them; sometimes life gets there first.
To win? To lose?
What for, if the world will forget us anyway?
I didn’t write that. A poet wrote that. I’m no poet. Poets are always looking for things, like heroes. Who wants to be a hero these days? Who can afford it? The world could be—and might very well already be—full of folks who will ring changes and do their part to shake up the constricting and crazed institutions that keep us chained, bound and complacent. There are lots of these people, I’m sure: tons and tons of them. But the thing is, most of us are too busy trying to live. It’s enough to just survive without seeking to pursue such lofty, such poetic propositions.
This is the new poetry: the more things stay the same, the more they change. Here is our art: haikus of horror in the cities, sonnets of sin and corruption, limericks of deregulation, free verse free trade, rhymed lines of laissez-faire, and the emboldened ghost writer, Death, forever at work on our collective life stories.
These days we look for poetry in all the wrong places. Some of us even believe we are gazing more deeply into the murky waters of existence when all we are actually seeing is our own reflections.
And so (I think): A life is not unlike a novel: too often they are eager to please, predictable, safe. I think: you should, therefore, feel obliged to occasionally ask yourself complicated questions. Such as: what are you doing to keep things interesting? What can you do to generate momentum, keep the narrative flowing?
Listen: When some of your best friends are people who exist elsewhere—characters in books you’ve read, musicians you’ll never meet, people from the past who died decades (even centuries) before you were born, or people you knew intimately who are no longer around—it might be time to ask some complicated questions.
Who are you?
That is, or should be, the first question, as well as the last question, and it should be asked as often as possible along the way.
You see, all men are islands. After all, no one else is inside you when you’re born, no one is going with you when you die, and between those first and last breaths, the decisions, actions and accountability are your own. All, all yours.
So: you find friends, you seek solace in yourself, you learn to discern redemption through the aimless affairs that comprise the push and pull of everyone’s existence. You realize, in short, that you are going through it alone, so you should never go through it alone. You can’t run away, and the farther you run, the closer you get to yourself. And you’re all you’ve got.
If you are fortunate enough to figure this out early on, you find friends: the real ones who exist in your everyday world, and the other ones who have been there all along, the ones you can always turn to, wherever or whoever you happen to be.
Please talk about me when I’m gone. That is the title of this memoir. It is also the presumptive title of any memoir. More, it’s the unwritten title of any work of art—a desire to have those thoughts and feelings articulated, read, understood, appreciated. More still, it’s the often unexpressed message of any individual life: we want to be discussed, loved, and celebrated after we’re no longer around. Mostly we do not want to be quickly or easily forgotten.
When you hear voices, or find yourself talking to people you are not sure can hear you, you should cut yourself some slack. We’ve all been there—or will be at some point. We’ve all, on occasion, looked up to the clouds and wondered if there was a kingdom beyond the skies, the place some of us were told our dearly departed looked down from. Haven’t we all, on occasion, taken comfort from a one-way conversation we forgot to be self-conscious about? Aren’t we all, at times, unable or unwilling to entirely abandon the idea that someone else is listening?
And so: you talk. And maybe, someone listens. Anyone might be listening up there, and that’s more comfort than anything you could ever find in a church. And so: you talk. Say something; everything. Say anything you need to say to survive.
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?
What he said.
