This here post is an exercise.
I want to be a writer. I mean - A Writer. There's a difference.
See, anyone can write. Every monkey and his cousin has a blog or a tumblr or fancies their Facebook status update as concise, social decelerations. There is Twitter which is for those that are trigger happy with quickly constructed, oblique aphorisms, whilst hundreds of literary journal take submissions from those who take the time edit and re-edit. People all over the world, in all languages, write every day and they all do it for different reasons.
My reason? As I said, I want to be A Writer.
Not now. Not right away. Not before due course. I'm happy to wait and work to and for it, but I do want it. On here and in other places I type and scratch out pages and sentences, certain that I will get there. I'm not that consistent. I'm not at it in a disciplined way. I may take a few months off to go see about something. There surely has to be a bit of a slog involved in reaching my goal. That's OK. It does mean though, that at the moment like most everyone else that writes, I'm not A Writer – I'm something else. What that is is is not important to you. What is important is that I know what I am. And I do.
In my mind, one of the things about being A Writer, is the total and automatic existence as one. A comparable example of what I mean is that one of my sisters is left handed. She is Left Handed. As such she writes, throws, holds her baby's bottle, slices sandwiches for lunch, holds the phone and brushes her teeth with her left hand. She doesn't have to think about which hand to use. She doesn't have to remember not to use the right one. She, at all times, leads with the left. If I wanted to know how a left handed person approached or reacted to something, she is the person to go to. For, if I as a right handed person, tried to use my left hand to imagine how a left handed person expresses themselves, all I know is how a right handed person pretends. She is the real deal. At all times, she is being who she is and anything she does or does not do is as a left-handed person.
I'm not sure if all of that helped clear up the point I was trying to make, so I'll explain a little more: A Writer, like a left handed person, is one who is their 'something' all the time. They do not have to think about it or force it, they just are. Even when they are not doing their 'thing' they still are that 'thing'. Even when my sister is sitting still and doing nothing (and this is almost never the case) she is still Left Handed and when A Writer is not at the keypoard or with pencil, he or she is still A Writer.
That's the key difference between a fellow who writes (a writer) and A Writer. I see myself as maybe a writer, but certainly not A Writer. I'm not in it all the time. Hunter Thompson is only one example of many many Writers who could and did publish collections of their letters. As A Writer, even when he was not working on a story or an article or novel, there is still so much to take from his words. Even if it's a letter back to his old mother, talking about thanksgiving or the snow or his brother, there's still so much he gives for you to take. You can track down video of him loitering around his ranch and home in Colorado and he is being a Writer then. Drunk and fondling a shotgun, whilst dropping biting observations of some politician, 'it' still comes out and smacks you in the face.
It must be due to this all eternal nature of A Writer, that they can write anywhere, any time. Its not like a faucet that can be turned on and off at will, but rather 'it' is always there and on and any time they strike that iron, it is hot. A Writer writes at home, on the train, by the pool, when in love, when heartbroken, when desperately trying to save something, when hungry, when bloated, in the middle of the night, at dawn, in battle, in pencil, in ink, when uncertain about tomorrow, when in regret of yesterday, in clarity, in victory, when distracted, when you're no longer there and when on a plane. A writer will write even on a plane.
I'm on a plane right now. It feels like I'm flying back to where I came from. I'm not flying back to what I came from – pretty much all of that is gone or was let go – only to the 'where' I just was. This brings up a mix of emotions. You don't need to know what they are, but suffice to say they are ones that normally keep me away from the keyboard. As does a lack of sleep. As does the cramped, desperate conditions of a plane with it's fears and smells and fluctuating temperatures and giant, burrito stuffed Americans brushing past. All of this just makes me want to watch old sitcoms and meaningless children's movies. All of these elements – and so much more- are in play right now. There is no comfort zone. Nothing about this feels like a velvet-red haze has fallen from above my forehead down around my eyes, as the spirit of someone else's romance mixes with the loss of my past. This seat is rigid and awfully blue and the engines are crushingly loud and that fellow with the gold manufacturers sticker still on his cap, has fallen asleep with his head crouching closer and closer to my shoulder and it's taking all my internal restraint to not rip said sticker off.
A Writer, however, would be able to write through all of that. The writing would just come. I want to be A Writer. Not now, but soon. Within a particular time-line. I have to get ready. I have to prepare. I'm gonna write on this here plane, not because I have something to tell you – surely it is your turn to say or write something to me– but because I need to get ready. This post is an exercise in trying to get ready. So that when The Truth finds me, I was already looking.
* N.B. This blog allows me to create or fictionalize so much of the real events and memories of my days, that sometimes the truth that is in there gets lost. On the other hand, complete nonsense gets mistaken for actual thoughts or events of this writer and I end up having to explain pure fantasy. (Although I did get a very sweet email the other day, where an old friend pointed out that she doesn't know how much of it is true. It seems she is one whom is certainly paying attention, so that's good. She also said she liked it when something or somewhere she is personally familiar with gets mentioned, so obviously, here's a mention of that which you are personally familiar with.) Well, in this case, I really am on a plane – that's the truth.. I would take everything else with your own grain of salt. Although, there are some parts.......
