I’m not going to
tell you about the limitations of time or priorities. This isn’t about having a
full-time job or the length of my commute. This is about agency. I want to tell
you about the days I don’t write.
I spend at least
two hours on the subway every day except Sunday. I usually read or listen to
audiobooks. Sometimes I take notes on my phone:
I don’t want to bore you with my troubles
-- these two guys sing on the shuttle
between
Times Square and Grand Central-- but I
love you, I love you, I love…
“The heart may
think it knows better […] we defend ourselves from the rooms, the scenes, the
objects that make the senses start up and fasten upon a ghost. We desert those
who desert us; we cannot afford to suffer; we must live how we can.”-Elizabeth
Bowen, The Death of the Heart
Trans by Jansport: Queer Currencies
and the Reclamation of Pride
Love is a choice. Attraction is not. ///////// How am I
getting in my own way?
Is democracy dead? No, we’re just alienated from the
process.
One note from
February just says “Cemeteries of the brain,” which feels like an appropriate
name for what it is that I am doing: pre-writing or creating this graveyard of
content to be mined later, or not.
By the time I sit
down to write this piece, it will be days later. I have a desk, but I won’t use
it. I will sit in my bed, back against the wall with my knees up. I won’t use
the notes I made about what I thought I would write about. It will be a
privilege.
I’m waiting for a
pizza delivery. It’s Friday. I just burned myself on a match while lighting
votive candles. I’m drinking white wine – Chablis if you care about that kind
of thing. I choose to watch an episode of Terrace House instead of finishing
this piece.
It’s the Karuizawa
season. Aio invites Yui to a bar (she’s a virgin who has never been to a bar)
and he says, “There are a lot of things you don’t like about me right?” It’s
true; Yui doesn’t like that he picks his nose and hocks loogies. The thing is Aio
has fallen for Yui and wants to win her over. So, he says, “Tell me,” meaning,
how can I change?
My writing practice
has often been like this, a kind of self-assessment, a blunt confessional
geared toward connecting with others and growth. But the writing only takes you
so far in that growth. Today, I take myself to the page, tell myself to change,
and walk away.
I remove four screws from the back of a
digital clock, replace the batteries, and reset the time: 9:27 pm. I do my
laundry, pay some bills, go out dancing. I make pasta, go to work, read. I
attend a political thing. I flirt. I don’t attend a political thing. I flirt. I
go to Japanese class. I go to therapy. I look at the flowers. I live.
The days that I
choose not to write are days I choose to heal in a different way. I am in a
state of change— literally. I relapsed in managing my depression over the
summer and adjusted my medications over
the winter.
Writing has always
played a role in my depression management, but the type of role it plays is
shifting. The page has always been a place I feel safe being vulnerable, a
place I feel seen and heard. It’s a place for growth but also a place for blame
if I’m not careful. The page is a place where I can always win, where I can
continue arguments in my head with people. It’s a place where I can pick my
scabs and bleed all over. While I am grateful for that, I don’t want to pick my
scabs or open old wounds right now. I don’t want to win; I want to learn how to
lose gracefully.
So, while I’m
learning to be well, there are more days I choose not to write than days I do. The
irony is that writing doesn’t begin or end with putting words on a page. Even
in choosing not to write, I am still doing the work in experiencing and
processing as much as possible. Through non-writing, I am changing my way to
the next thing. This is part of writing too.
Catherine Pikula has degrees from Bennington
College and New York University. Her chapbook I'm
Fine. How Are You? was selected by Chole Caldwell
as winner of the 2018 Newfound Prize.
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