Same old same

Early March, 2013

What point is there in wondering what the hell I've done? How trite, self-indulgent.

Okay, yeah. What can be more self indulgent than writing a novel? It is an investment in time. If we are limited by what we see and do by our sense of the passing hours, than what better way to repel that illusion than with the world that lives in spite of it.

I'm speaking here of the inner world that I carry around, the dialogs and constant chatter, the patchwork of images and the look in the eyes of the individuals with whom I work every day. How do I make these things click in their own time, their own beat? What I carry is what I need, and what I need is what nourishes me.

There is something that pulls at me today, today of all days, something that has gripped me this morning deep in my gut. Is it the sense that all this time has passed and here I sit, struggling even to put a sentence together? Is it that I have placed such a high value on writing that not even I can attain the standards I've set for myself?

I try to teach students to find their inner drive, the little monster that pushes them through the day, what causes them anguish, gratitude, ecstasy? How is it that they have come this far in their lives? What roads have they travelled and what roads do they see before them? I try to teach my students to write these things without judging them, write without steering the authentic experience into common stereotype and dismissal. I try to get my students to celebrate, honor, dance unabashed in the center of these things without fear of judgement. I try to teach them these things because they are what I need to learn myself. Again and again.