Typing this makes me think of that silly movie, I Heart Huckabees
How am I not myself?
I have become increasingly concerned with my lack of writing. I have become concerned with the goals I have set up for myself, and with my expectations. Just call me Pip. I am concerned with the idea that perhaps I'm less of a writer than I ever thought myself to be and, just maybe, I've been a one-trick pony this entire time. A writer good for a few sparklers - bright, snapping with fire... but ultimately ephemeral. Am I ephemeral in type?
I have grown to consider a few of my collection the"magnum opus" of my "writing career." As though it's all over as though I'm half-blind and crooked with age, mind infirm and reeling constantly into jags of clouded and hazy half-recollection and consideration. I question the fact that it matters to me - does this mean I am or ever was? I question the fact that it doesn't matter more - does this mean I can't be any longer or never was? I question why I ever thought I had a "voice," why I ever thought I had a discernible "style." What is that voice I hear within my head? Whose words are those committed to paper?
Could I ever have enough to say to fill the endless pages?
Could I ever write anything again that is as raw, as honest, as striking?
Was it ever, to begin with?
Of all of the things that I could be stripped of, this is last on my list. The missing-ness of it has come sneakily, stealthily - as shadows sometimes come creeping up the lawn, as fog seems to swell and swallow and recede all at once while you drive through it... So much so that I didn't know it had left, until it was gone. What's worse - for me - is the bulk of my writing for the past two years is being held hostage in some house in Lodi, wrapped but never mailed. I wonder if my feeling will fade when (if?) that is returned to me. Perhaps it's like a mother hen needing all of her little chicks in sight?
I do wonder, and heartily wish I knew what on earth to do with this feeling. This entry doesn't really do the creepy-crawliness of it justice.
