A knot to untie.
A spark that demands to fly.
An ember to stoke.
A full jar ready to overflow.
A scab awaits an itch.
A wound craves a stitch.
A call from the dark hollow, beckons to swallow.
I lie in bed waiting: sometimes to fall asleep, sometimes to get up and start writing again. I let it out. It meanders and finds its path. It has a mind of its own. I can’t arrest it again. It flows. Sometimes it refuses to go further; then it decides to go deeper, like a whirlpool. Motion has many forms. I let it dig, find the trenches, fill it up and move forward again.
Then my day starts—office, travel, groceries, dinner menus, homework, more work calls. It waits its turn—patiently at times, begrudgingly otherwise. I like its impatience; it feeds on it and gets stronger. It waits for its reckoning.
I discovered Toni Morrison through her obituary. I don’t know why it took me so long to find her. Beloved was the first book I read of Ms Morrison’s. Her insight and clarity felt like a super power to me; something I didn’t possess. She could articulate things we felt, but never knew we were feeling— “On nights when the sky was personal, weak with the weight of its own stars, he made himself not love it”. How did she know that the sky felt personal on some nights? That was Toni Morrison’s genius for me.
I am fascinated by the things that hide in plain sight—the human experience that isn’t, the human experience waiting to be uncovered. Ever since I discovered it—writing—I have experienced an astral quality to everyday life. Sometimes I find myself drifting outside a situation I am in (an intense conversation, a complex problem to solve, a hard fight) and observing. It feels surreal and light to observe myself and others around me. I have become my own study and it hugely empowering and gratifying—empowering because of the clarity I get by distancing myself from a difficult situation; gratifying because I am finally getting the attention I deserve.
I hate editing because of hubris. I write for me; but I also write for you. I assume you are inside my head with me—thinking what I think, feeling what I feel, and knowing what I know. That all my words will mean to you exactly what they mean to me. I am learning to fight this assumption, this hubris. But it’s painful to other you. To get you out of my head, sit you across the table, and tell you what I want to say in a manner that you will understand. I am learning to do that better.
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