Today has been a whacked out day. A lot has been going wrong all day, and I have been torn between tears and rage all day long. Then, I take my son to his soccer practice and I decide to try to shut up the emotions by reading the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. All goes well until I read Stephen Kings article at the end. What follows is the entry I savagely scribbled after I read the article. This one, not quite typical for this here blog. I SWEAR, but it was one I had to post. Here, I’ll help you out? Want funny? Click HERE. Because I? Am hilarious.
Keep going if you want to read the not-so-funny Zoot post.
I sit here, in this car, with this purple pen and daily planner and I am so filled with this creative energy that I have to write.
So I write.
I fear if I don’t keep writing some of these ideas will be lost forever, and become a total waste of energy. I can actually feel the ideas leaving my mind, undocumented, as I write this illegibly – wondering…Is that MY child screaming for his Mom? And thinking, Will I even be able to read this later?
So I write.
I make a list, an illegible list, of all my ideas, funny ideas, sad ideas, creative ideas. I draw arrows I scribble; I panic because I fear it will fade too fast.
So I write.
Is it possible to actually be thinking two things at the EXACT same time? Is there any way to EVER capture ones thoughts exactly how they occur? Or do thoughts represent such a complex language that the written word alone cannot contain it all. Even with this purple pen. There are not only words to thought – there is also Fear. Fear? Did I just write Fear? I meant emotions, so what does that mean that I just wrote Fear?
So I write.
I FEAR as I write, that I cannot write fast enough to capture the thoughts. I fear I will not be able to read my writing later and the thoughts will be lost forever. This is the second time I have worried about this.
So I write
I think about photography, and how a good photographer can capture more than just an image. I guess, that is what makes a good writer, one who captures more than just words; they capture the thought behind the words. I don’t know if I could ever convey the seriously bizarre desperation I feel as I write this.
So I write.
I feel, right now, that if I stop writing, it will cease these thoughts, that this intense feeling will disappear.
Then – I look up
I see a girl. A golden girl with golden hair shining beneath the setting sun. She may be 9. She sits in the grass next to the soccer field and she plays with the greenery and I wonder what she is thinking. And for one brief moment, I feel I am with her in her youth, I am one with her spirit, I am one with this golden child. I breathe in her purity, her hopes, her dreams, and I feel her wonder of ALL things and her wonder of NOTHING that she feels all at once. That dichotomy that only a child can know. I feel it with her. I savor it. And then, it is gone; she is up, kicking the ball.
So I write.
I turn back to the measly notepad on this silly day planner and I write because I feel if I stop, I may succumb to the sudden and overwhelming emotion that seems to have come to surface, pushed forward by these creative impulses. This vivid emotional break is teetering at the edge of my soul. I suddenly feel I am holding the floodwaters of the last few months of my life. The seas of my heart have chosen this vulnerable moment to storm and to rage against the fortress that bind it.
So I write.
I built this fortress. A fortress I was unaware of until the moment that its integrity became jeopardized. That moment is NOW. A fortress I have built to cope with the pain of a lost life, the sorrow of lost hope, the pain of lost dreams.
So I write.
It is NOW. Now that I become so overwhelmed by emotion I cannot put it all down into words. I write and I scribble and I cross out because as I write the thoughts, the emotions change so that what I just transcribed with this goofy purple pen is no longer true.
So I write.
I feel pain, but as I write those words, the pain turns to joy and again to loss and I cannot keep up. But this raw emotion that seems to be surfacing is NOT suffocating me, it is liberating. I see the fortress now for what it is. It is the fortress that keeps me functioning in this pragmatic world, in this corporeal frame. It is a shelter that holds those raw and animalistic urges and emotions tight. It keeps them locked up so I can go to work and take care of my family and do things as mundane as dusting base boards and pairing socks.
So I write.
But these emotions, these feelings, this raw human spirit is still there, inside of me, wanting to be seen for the beauty and the terror that it truly is.
So I write.
I acknowledge these feelings and capture them as they surface. I give them their moment of pure freedom and I feel them. I truly FEEL them. I savor the loss of my miscarriages, and just as quickly as those losses fill my heart, it is gone again. That loss is replaced by the savage love I have for my husband. I embrace that and I feel that and then, like the loss before it, the love is Felt and Released from its binding fortress
So I write.
The savage emotion between 2 soul mates is released to freedom because I FELT it, if but for a moment. I gave that love, that passion, what it had been longing for, just like the extreme loss before it. The pure love I have for my son now surfaces. The overwhelming desire to protect him from all that could hurt him is so close it makes me crazy. But this desire to protect him surfaces at the same time as the wisdom I have gained from my own hurts.
So I write
These 2 feelings battle each other. They wage war in this moment, here, with this purple pen. But neither can win. Because in order to be a good mother, they must co-exist. So I feel them both. I feel their battle, I embrace the torment of indecision, and then, they too are released.
So I write.
All of this confusion and stress and curious pain that have been nagging at my soul the last few weeks; all of that is slowly disintegrating as I allow all of the ravaging emotions that have to be guarded daily – to be free. What started as an overwhelming flow of creative ideas, culminated in an emotionally liberating moment, here – in my car – at my sons soccer practice. And I have released these emotions, these savage animalistic pains; I have set them free to see the sun, feel the breeze, and smell the flowers. I let them feel freedom so they can, in turn, free ME from their grasp.
So I write.
Now, this freedom allows me to continue my life as a boring, drab, simple soccer mom with 2 dogs, 2 cats and chicken thawing for dinner.
So I write.
Because it has now ceased. It is time to breath again. It is time to go about my evening. Cook dinner (or maybe order pizza), fold clothes and enjoy a night with the family. Enjoy an evening with less of the mysterious hurt that has been making me ache. It is still there, it is always there, but now – I can cope. It is time to smile, and feel the joy that has been overshadowed for too long. It is time for me to work on that list I made in the beginning of this experience. It is time for me to go back to making people laugh. It is time for me to embrace the pain and the love that are bound to come back b/c that is life, and I am alive. And THAT is a beautiful thing.
So I finally stop writing.
