Posts Tagged ‘journal’

I really, really loved this exercise. It called for me to begin with the words, “In this one…” and go from there.

In this one, you are laughing at some now long forgotten joke. It is before they found the lump in your breast. Tiny lines crinkle the corners of your eyes, crease the corners of your lips. One errant lock of hair curls down in front of your ear, and your hand is reaching up to brush it away.

In this one, you are solemn, your profile dark against the slate gray sky outside the window. Your blue eyes look as gray and empty as the sky, and those tiny crinkles stretch down to the apples of your hollow cheeks. But you are not smiling.

In this one, you are angry. You do not want to be seen this way. You are embarrassed by the absence of your glorious red curls, and try to cover your smooth white head with a handkerchief, but the shutter is faster.

In this one, you are beautiful. You are bent over the kitchen table reading a thick book, and you are barely smiling, but it is enough. Thin wisps of mousy hair linger at your temples and at the nape of your neck, but the rest of your head is bare. You are beautiful, and you do not even know it.

This exercise was beautiful. It called for closing my eyes and calling up one image, and letting it explode into detail and lead me to another image, and then to another. It was called “Beginning (again).”

The clouds ahead were stained purple and blue-gray and stretched on in billowing masses for miles. Where rain fell, the images blurred like watercolor dripping down a canvas, blending all of the shades and shapes into a soft stream of uniform color. The wind pushed them ahead of me and rippled the tall grass around me like swells on an ocean. Their tufted tops were soft as velvet as the wind swept through and bounced them against each other.

The tree at my back stood tall and strong against the gale, it’s branches thrashing above me, twisting and writhing against each other, leaves shimmering green and silver like miniature pennants. But the rough trunk supported me, unwavering no matter how fast and hard the wind blew and how hard the storm raged.

The rain fell in cool, fat drops, bouncing off the leaves and dripping down along their middles like they were irrigation channels. It splashed upon my upturned face and dripped down into my hair, little by little soaking it through until it stuck to my face in fat clumps. It washed away the stickiness of sweat and left me shivering in the suddenly cool afternoon.

Thunder rolled, beginning far away and slowly rumbling across the sky until it seemed to crack right above me. The ground shuddered with the noise, but still the tree stood fast. Another grumble of thunder worked its way across the sky, bringing with it another burst of rain and another gust of wind.

The grass billowed around the trunk and tickled my arms like the gentle caress of a lover.

There, with the tree at my back and the grasses surrounding me, no matter how hard the wind blew, how torrential the rain fell, or how viciously the thunder cracked, I felt safe.

This exercise was one I’d done before. It was easier the second time around, but it was surprising who came out this time.

This exercise called for me to envision a bus coming in over the horizon filled with internal critics. I was to let them file off one by one and say their piece before kicking them out of my head.

Names have been changed to protect the (sometimes not so) innocent.

I’ve been here before. I recognize this rough grass, stretching up to grasp my jeans and the hem of my shirt, and I recognize this battered old road stretching away in either direction and winding over the low, humped backs of the grassy hillocks that lumber across this plain. I recognize the faint sound that begins to the west, preceding the beat up white bus full of people I have faced before and will face again, and people I have not before dredged up out of the depths of my mind.

I recognize the bus when it comes into view, a tiny, wavering white dot on the horizon, wheezing and rumbling along, bouncing over potholes and old gravel scattered down the road. And I am familiar with this waiting as I prepare myself to face those who have shut my words up in my head for so long. They will shut them up no longer. It ends today.

The bus lumbers towards me, windows open to the little black line and voices echoing across the grassy plains. I cannot make out any specific words over the asthmatic chugging of the old diesel engine, but when the massive white beast screeches to a stop in front of me and the doors squeal open, the cacophony dies down as the first critic steps down.

“Write trash,” Mr. Black says, “and abandon God. He can’t help you.” He gets in close to my face. “This isn’t good enough. None of this is good enough. You aren’t trying. You’re slacking. I don’t care if you’re depressed. Plenty of writers are depressed. Do better. Do better. DO BETTER. It doesn’t matter how well you do, because it will never be good enough. You’ll never understand, and you’ll never succeed.”

“You’ll never be as good as Matt,” Mrs. Blanco says as she pushes past Black. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but you’re a failure and he’s a success. See? You’ve failed again. You can’t do anything right. You’re a terrible student, and you should just give up now.”

I’m surprised by who steps off the bus next. I never expected her to be a part of this crowd. Sandy pulls me into a tight hug. “I love you, but you should really just give this up. You need to make money, and this isn’t going to make you money. You need to focus on everything else right now. Writing can wait. It isn’t as important as feeding yourself.”

“Do you really still not understand? Writing is my life. Writing keeps me sane. It soothes my mind and my soul and it’s the best way I have to connect with God and with myself. I would rather be homeless and go hungry than give this up.

“And Mrs. Blanco, what are you still doing here? I thought I evicted you years ago. Your venom and vitriol are not welcome here. I am BETTER than Matt. I am NOT a failure. I have NOT failed again. I have closed a door and opened several windows. I’ve given myself the freedom to spend some time doing what I love and what I’ve been neglecting. I’ve given myself time to take care of myself, which I haven’t been able to do lately. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You were a terrible teacher, a misshaper of young minds, and you are NOT WELCOME HERE.

“And Mr. Black… Really? Trash? And how DARE you shove your existential ideas down my throat and expect me to swallow it with a smile and abandon God. You may have helped make me a bit of a better writer, but it was NOT worth the damage you’ve done. I WILL succeed. Just you wait. You’ll see, and then you’ll regret all of those things you said to me and made me feel.”

There are plenty of silent critics who judge me with their eyes, but as they file off the bus, I realize that none of them matter at all. They are jealous and angry and they mean nothing to me at all.

Everyone slowly piles back on the bus, and I send them on their way down the road, from which there will be no coming back.