This Friday my workplace finally trusted me with a closing
shift. Closing entails an entire hour alone in the building, and requires two
basic functions: staying awake and locking a door. Everybody reassured me
several times they were only a phone call away should disaster strike, and
promptly bolted for the door because obvs it was Friday night and they had some
important kitty cat videos to Youtube. What did I do with my newfound freedom?
I perused Autostraddle, of course. And I read all these things that Riese loves,
and evidently Riese loves writers writing about how much they love writing. You
know what guys? I love writing. And I constantly find myself fighting the urge
to write about writing. The process, and inspiration and frustration… I’ve
resisted thus far. I feel like this handful of essays, stories and articles
gives me permission to write about writing. Just this once.
As a socially awkward 7-year old, I decided I was going to
be a writer. My first novel would be a staggering work of fiction dealing with love,
friendship, betrayal and any other grandiose notions I could wrap my tiny baby
brain around. Obviously, the loveable protagonist in this story was a Brittany
Spaniel named Rusty. Baby b was an avid animal lover, and our special
daughter-mom bonding activity was volunteer dog walking at the Humane Society
(even though I always had three or four dogs of my own stuck at my dad’s house,
languishing in the backyard). Rusty had this infectious energy; he always
seemed frenzied and desperate. I could definitely relate. I loved him from the
start. He dragged me around the Humane Society’s lawn for an hour, two days a
week for at least a month.
I plugged away at The Story of Rusty (I like to think back
on it as The Epic Tail of Rusty) for a good three years. I was convinced that
somehow a written happy ending would supersede the real Rusty’s euthanasia. The
story grew with me. When my best friend was being a vindictive bitch, Rusty
encountered an equally unsavory character. When my mom was sick, Rusty’s was
killed by a drunk trucker. When taking care of my sister felt overwhelming,
Rusty provided for his rambunctious littermates and always behaved admirably.
Then my dad informed sister and I we were packing up and
moving to California before the end of the week. I cried and he told me an analogy
about water in a desert that I still don’t understand contextually. But that settled
it. That’s when Rusty ran away to live alone, because he realized that people
were always going to let him down. He was brave and self-reliant. I moved to
California.
I haven’t attempted another Staggering Work of Fiction, but
writing has been my go-to for years. In fourth and fifth grade I wrote a series
of hyper-emotional poems about my cat and rainstorms. I’ve also had the
pleasure of flipping through the journal I kept the year we moved to
California. Henri the cat and his existential distress probably capture the tone best. Junior high I got really into Jesus, and wrote
a lot of hyperbolic poetry praising G-O-D, our lord and savior. High school I
discovered drugs, alcohol and razor blades. This considerably less holy Trinity
proved just as conducive to mawkish immortalization. Some of it will probably eventually find its way onto this blog, so you can see I'm not exaggerating.
I don’t know where writing will take me, but I know I’ll
stick with it. I can’t imagine life without it. Writing helped me navigate a lot of really awful shit. It consistently helps me self-assess, self-catalogue
and self-medicate. This blog in particular has been therapeutic. Do you guys
even realize how perfect you are? Because I’m giving you everything, opening up
my past like a jewelry box and giving you the gaudiest trinkets. Cracking open
my observations like a geode so you can see the crystalline innards of my
brain. And every time I feel self-conscious, or worry about meeting your expectations, I get a text or an e-mail, or a message thanking me for sharing. Or telling me you relate. Or appreciating some snippet of prose in one of my posts. You guys, I'm incredibly delicate. You've got all the power here. Thank you for being so gentle with me.
I would like to believe this was written for me. I wish it was written to me:
“Writing is hard
for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do
you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for
coal? They do not. They simply dig. You need to do
the same, dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star
glowbug. That you’re so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what
you’re here to do. And when people are here to do that they almost always tell
us something we need to hear. I want to know what you have inside you. I want
to see the contours of your second beating heart.”
5 things I saw and wanted to share:
1. Puttering down Pardee St, a camouflage
bug with a lawn mower strapped to the roof
2. Birdhouses stacked,
onetwothreefour, roughly hewn condos full of avian drama
3. Little boys on bikes discussing
the mechanics of ice cream consumption
4. Unruly lawns spilling into the
sidewalk, waves of flowers like a creeping tide
5. A yellow tulip stained with the
bloody evidence of some genetic battle.
God bless Portland, and all the loveable weirdos calling it
home.
-b
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