I'm currently obsessed with truth. I've been asking people, not so subtly, what they think of truth. Good friends, casual acquaintances. How do you define truth? What do you think it is? Do you think it's important? I am reading too much philosophy, the kind that twists your brain in a knot until your left eye twitches and your stomach drops out. I am hounding truth or it is hounding me. I am beating my head against the table, against the wall, against the questions, one after another. I am forming some thoughts. You know what truth is? Please tell me what you think.
Listen, it comes down to this: I made the choice to write here and write often because I wanted to write about difficult things. I want to take all of the notebooks that I have torn apart and thrown away, take those crackling words, and spill them out all over the place and let people run around in them. I want to split myself wide open and lift up my eyes and make awkward eye contact that lasts too long before I say Hi.
I have done some writing lately that is hard. There are people who can easily flash around the insides of their life without a problem. For me, it is a physical effort to put the words out there. I have been in the early stages of working on a piece about a woman on Nantucket who killed her daughter in an exorcism. The piece also contains the threads of mental illness in my family, experience with holiness and fear, and following the voices in our head or leading them along with us. I'm not going to put it out here, but I will share this:
That night, I sat on the floor. I sat in the corner and pressed my back against the wall, felt the stiff carpet against my bare feet, pulled my knees to my chest, shivered in thick late August air. I knew it was her, but I didn't recognize her, didn't hear her voice, didn't see her face. I turned off the light and sat in the dark. I think we were both consumed with fear that night - we didn't know how to reach across the divide.
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Other important things:
-I'm going to buy a new bookshelf this weekend. After reading The Twelve Ways to Organize a Bookshelf I've realized that I actually enjoy bookshelf chaos, as I never organize my shelves (except maybe to group Shakespeare all together). This might be one of the only areas of my life that I appreciate disorder. I like to look at a shelf for one thing and remember something else and be surprised by what I find.
-I read this post and...oh man. I have to reminded again and again and again that writing is connection and this is it. I want to write things that other people can connect themselves to.
-I have renewed my intent to write on difficult things and to find other writing outlets.
-I have reminded myself that, whatever I post up here, the purpose is to keep me writing and keep me aware. It is at least doing that.
-Finally, @cnfonline (Creative Nonfiction) retweeted me twice yesterday. That felt awfully nice.
Happy weekend friends.
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