Writing toward Something and Something Else

The words do not come easily this morning. I am exhausted, weary even. I don’t want to sit in front of my laptop and try to compose something; I want to crawl back into bed and pretend I don’t have responsibilities. I don’t want to write when I’m in this mood, but I know better. I know better than to give into despondency. I know to fight it. I’m a writer, and writers write.

***

I trust if I continue to write, if I marshall past this emotion, I will get to something. Maybe I’ll even get to something else. I will have an “encounter,” as Paul Celan says. I will meet the self that isn’t encumbered by daily life and isn’t an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. I know this. Even so, everything in me rages against the attempt. I feel a tension with the words and with myself. Everything is a bit sideways. I want the world to realign.

I know, though, that realignment begins by writing one word then another. “Bird by bird,” Anne Lamott says. That’s why I sit down. I write. I write the one bird, then I write another. I keep writing about those birds until I find something and something else.

***

The day and its responsibilities order me away from my laptop and toward what is on the day’s agenda. I may not feel ready for the day, but I’ve written. I’ve written my birds. I’ve attempted to have an encounter. For now, that will have to be enough.

Image: Dr Phil (CC BY NC SA 2.0)