Baby Steps

I've always thought that writing is the purest form of expression; you open a book and a world is born. Books have always been my dearest friends, never critical, never harsh, always patiently waiting. The world didn't understand me, nor I it, but I could live through my books, improve myself through books, let some light in the sometime lonely life I led - all through books. As to writing, well, I have amused at least a dozen people through my emails, written what I thought were funny/interesting/useful reviews on Yelp, received accolades back in high school for my writing, won an award once in college, always considered myself a writer in my heart and yet...no writing. Why is that? Am I afraid? Desperately so, I must admit, it's such a revealing form of expression. As I sit here my heart is in my mouth...how strange, how fascinating! I am thinking of my favorite writers and things they have said: do not approach the naked page lightly (Stephen King) and of course this gem from Hemingway: All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. So blood it will be, hey? Blood is evidently required; nobody leaves here alive. Is that the way of it, then?

Do I really want to sit here and bleed? Jeez Louise, haven't I done enough of that in life? Do I really want to take myself apart and put myself back to together and show all you people that I have something to say, a story to tell, a life, a wonderful life? Filled with pathos and despair and terror and love and joy and deep profound happiness just lately? Do I want to tell you, show you, how I am NOT ordinary? Do I have this to offer, really?

Well, Shelley, you are of this great lucky age, 39, soon to be 40 yes indeed, and I am glad of it. I do feel rather awkward writing about 40 just yet...I am not quite 40. But already I am proud of it. I'm proud primarily due to the vain and happy fact that I do not look my age. OK, that's good Shel, be honest. Show the faults and foibles. Show 'em you've got a sense of humor. OK good now go on. Besides not showing my age, and I know this is wrong and bad!!! but I feel wiser than most. I mean, I'm wise enough to know that I am not wise. That's the best way, be humble. I feel like I've tolerated a fair amount of loneliness and hell and muck and mud throughout what is hopefully the first half of my life. I've been rejected and dejected and hell, ejected from more than one place in the latter, more than one person in the former. And the funny thing about all that is, it's made me a better person who is much more self-reliant than, well, a lot of people. Yes, it hurts sometimes, life hurts, shit, that is how you know you are alive sometimes. I used to think that depression was part and parcel of my personality: news flash, it's not. It doesn't have to be for you, either. Ah, but it formed me! So OK, now I am figuring it out. If I want to write honestly and truly, I have to bleed. I got through it; I'm alive, back from the wars, and boy it was ugly. And I find myself well and alive and actually living a life I love, and here I am 40 now (almost) and if it's not time to write now, well, it will never be, and I must stop thinking of myself as a writer, let go of that creative part in my soul, and just BE. No crime in just being.

So do I really want to sit here and spatter my blood on this clean white page? Do I?

Gosh, I don't want to give you the impression that I know the Secret To Life Itself, or anything. I guess I'll have to write it, and you'll kindly read it (perhaps) and then you can judge for youself if anything I say is worth 2 cents to you or anybody else.

Daring myself.

Shel: you must be honest, you must hold nothing back, you are going to have to allow yourself to be uncomfortable and get over it. Didn't you use to tell yourself the unexamined life was not worth living? Didn't you use to think of yourself as a scholar, a poet, a student? Yes, I did. And something in me says do it now, because you'll never do it otherwise.

So let's end the suspense, shall we? I am entering into a contract with myself. I shall challenge myself to write a bit every day, to be honest, to be scrupulous with you and myself. You will see my heartsblood and I will die, but I'm going to give it a real shot. These things, these thoughts, these dreams that live in my heart ARE worthwhile, to me at least, and painful as it is, I will strive to share them with you. Some of you will recognize yourselves. Unfortunately, the guilty will have to be protected (I guess, dammit). I am going to do it, a striptease of the self, a veil at a time. I think tomorrow I will begin with the beginning; what do you think? Because if you are reading this, you are now my Very Favorite Person and Valued Reader; hopefully not Vile Critic. You are my secret friend, the one I will tell everything to.

Terribly exciting and terrifying journey, for me. For you, hopefully it's something to amuse yourself with over a cup of coffee, something to have a bit of a laugh over, just quite possibly I will make you think...we shall just see where and how it goes? Where it ends? Not even I know, for I am Currently Unfinished and someone will have to be around to pen the obituary for me and say, well, I'm glad that bitch is dead, or gee, wasn't she wonderful?

OK here it goes. See you soon.