Adventures in Metaphor

Late March, 2013

There are too many ways not to write. Here's one: worry. Worry about everything that is not within your grasp to control. That said, I believe I am coming to that point in my present bout of writers block in which the inevitable is about to occur, well, as it always does.

Drum is at a stage of a complete rewrite with an emphasis on organization. This is where I am having the most difficult time. But as usual, my difficulty is in rising to the task more than the actual task. Every time I begin thinking of synthesizing Jade's story with the M&C story, I dive into escapism. This writing I am doing, even though it is writing and therefore a step in the right direction, this writing is essentially a distraction. I focus on this because I feel the other is overwhelming, burdensome; I long to be free of it. And it is for this reason that I must plow into it.

But when? Now, of course.

Later: And of course I went sailing, instead. I think the impasse I am experiencing is in some way linked with my son's. As a fifteen year-old navigating the choppy riptides of that age, he is moving passed some rocky points (to whip a dead metaphor). And why do I feel that I am also riding in these same conflicted seas? The reason is that his lack of self-confidence and perhaps the alienation he feels from his own expectations of himself is also my own anxiety and woe. What he is going through reminds me so much of my own trailhead to the lengthy, circuitous, and mostly daunting path into the alpines of adulthood.

And as I think of it, isn't this also Jade's path? She seeks out and erects every blockade she can muster to prevent herself from uncovering her truth. And isn't this the story I want to tell: the story of personal redemption? Is Jade's story not a Moby Dick, a Pilgrims Progress, a Beowulf? Hers is story that must resonate, I think. But it is the story that matters and not any agenda I'm wont to ascribe it. It is the story that must be told; I'll leave the resonations to the reader.

What I see, or what I'm beginning to see, is that the story of Drum, like my life, is being hampered by obstructions that are largely imaginary, like Alice allowing her anxiety to run away with her to Wonderland. The naysayer in me--even as I write this sentence--is at his table drafting plans for yet another artful mechanism that will pry or pulley or sail me away from what increasingly imposes on me to get the story out. The design is impeccable, the lines without flaw. Here I am again, my inner engineer drawing myself into another elaborate cage.

How will this story end?