I remember writing few months back where all my energy, ideas and focus melded into one need to get the story done. I was smiling and truly enjoying the process, just living the dream of being a writer, knowing that what was being laid down was pretty good and I could do this. I want that moment back, those blissful hours when it seemed becoming a writer full time was not a fantasy, that I was good enough dammit! Yet lately, I seem to have found people who either don’t think much of my writing or dismiss it. Worse, still I have others who manage to always feel bad about blogging or posting on Facebook even when I am supremely careful of not blogging names and keeping my status updates to a minimum. I feel stifled and trapped into being a certain type of personality on social media as if I have to apologize for being open about my thoughts and feelings. Sure, I have said too much sometimes and called out others when it was not my business to, and to that I can only apologize and call it a learning process, yet I feel trapped with the label of someone who talks too much. It’s soul and creativity killing to know that my words are scrutinized to be either dismissed or confirm my status as a big mouth.
I want my words to have the energy they did when I wrote freely and got them out of being in my body, bottled up for so long. That’s where I want to get to. Let’s hope that the ones who are judging me know that they are killing me softly.
It took me quite a while to start writing today namely because my eyes kept wandering over to other sites (flickr/install new mac updates/Mac App stores) and thoughts (I really need to finish watching the Justice League of America Season 2/I need to get a physical/why isn’t my Apple TV synching to the Macbook). It was as I was starved for intellectual stimulation or perhaps because I knew I was already behind on my post a day self-promise. Yet somehow, it does not sting as much as I thought because I an constantly thinking of writing. However, there is the 900 pound gorilla in the room: what to write about. As much as blogging is satisfying in that I get to vent, I know I haven’t gotten to the real task: to writing original content. That’s a new problem because in high school, I stumbled onto short story writing, at UCLA personal columns, and now blogging. It appears I cannot write unless there is a significant part of me invested into the words, and that’s a bit scary and troubling at the same time because I truly believe if you are a writer, you should be able to write in just about any genre and so with that in mind I am going to attempt to write my first short story in years.
I haven’t decided if I am going to post as I write or when it’ complete, but I know the progress will be noted in my writer’s group (the first such group I ever have joined), and perhaps as a testament to the seriousness of my writing when I start my Writer’s Studio seminar at UCLA. Either way, I know I need to do more than just whine on here or talk about her friends or my feelings. I need to produce so I can finally make the transition from would be writer to actually being one.
As I drove past the car carcasses of many people on the freeway, it struck me that each of those lives have been changed. We often look from the outside in and barely register other people’s lives. We constantly live in a life of “ME ME ME” while what happens to others is of no consequence or it seems. Take for instance what happened to me on Saturday night.
After finally delaying for many days, I decided Blockbuster really does need its rentals of The Other Guys (not bad) and A-Team (great time pass) back. So I hustled off telling Preeti it was imperative I return the movies (really because I wanted more to watch) and I would be back in an hour (no rental trip is complete with at least another chore tagged alone or then you really feel like a loser). So I got into the car, fumbled around with the wipers (after all I am a full-blooded Southern Californian, rain is pretty much a foreign concept), and got them up to appropriate speed so I could see through. So far so good.
I first thought of doing the chore (but Trader Joe’s can wait), first let’s get the movies back ( I hope they got in Salt, I haven’t seen that). As I got out my driveway, I put on the new songs I had synced to my iPod integration in-car (definitely proud of that gadget) and the first song turned out to the Shabad Kabeer from a CD my dad had compiled for guests and family members as we prayed together for a swift recovery for loved ones.
As the Shabad played, I turned my focus towards getting to the Promised Land of Rentals. I got onto the ancillary street that took me to the main one, thought about stopping by Gurjit’s by decided against it (realized he was staying with my other cousin and if I took those two with me Blockbuster, that’s the only errand I would get done.) I got to the main light, and stopped, waiting for Traffic Control to give me permission to make a left. Since this was Cerritos, Ca, they are not big fans of free will and instead of letting drivers follow the rules they had learned in Driver’s Ed, I was required to wait until a green arrow pointed the way. So I waited, glancing at the Taco Bell, realizing I haven’t eaten there in weeks. Realized how much my brain was prattling along, took a deep breath and tried to still myself (something I had learned from The Power of Now by Elkhart Tolle). The light turned green, and as I began to turn, a car hit me head on, which made me giggle (at the thought what more could wrong in my life and that for once Cerritos was right).
At first, I glanced up quickly to check the light (perhaps a bit guiltily, maybe I misread red to be green), but it was turning orange, as if to say “last chance to get through buddy!” The other guy (who happened to be a Domino’s delivery guy, Preeti’s favorite but not mine) had run the red light. I knew that instinctively, he was speeding since his air bag had deployed. I rushed out the car to check on him, while calling 911 (probably the only time multi-tasking is OK). Moments later, a Sheriff’s car pulled up (lights blazing, yay Cavalry is here!), and asked what happened (no, are you ok? Is he ok?) while tersely telling us both to get out the intersection (God Forbid, we cause a scene or worse more traffic). My car struggled to get me into the gas station, and as I kept giggling (really can anything more go wrong in 2010?), an old woman and her son (presumably) approached me, and said “we saw what happened. Normally, it’s the guy who’s making the left that’s at issue but you had the green arrow (instinctively thinking of the DC comic book hero), and he ran a red light. Those poor guys waited patiently for over an hour and a half to give their statement. Total strangers who could have driven by my carcass of a life, but instead chose to rain me with compassion and ethics.
To some, it may seem a car accident as just more bad luck for me, but as a dear friend said, it’s better to be lucky sometimes than good.
I have a need to be read so I know I exist. These are my words, and I need to share them. Too long, they have gone silent, and worst of all ignored by me. I had convinced myself that writing was enough, just like breathing. But after a while, you need more than air to live. Life isn’t just a series of breathing exercises yet for a while that’s how I treated my life. Something I just had to do. No vision. No motivation. Just passing of the day and really just being lucky enough to be around people who loved me for existing and providing me with everything.
So why am I whining because I know I am a fraud. I know that the words coming here now are just so simple and don’t even come close to the poetry in my head. It used to be so easy and now I am lazy and dull. I stopped listening and hearing what the words were trying to tell. So now I just sit here, listening to amazing religious songs with a cold cup of coffee trying to convince myself at 38 that this is what I want to be. Yet every moment feels forced, made up just so I can say I wrote.
I am a writer. It’s what I tell myself when I wake up every morning, and the first strokes of the words comes easy. Yet after a minutes, I find myself tweeting/emailing/posting/reading/searching/paying bills all throughout the precious time I have managed to find to write. It’s as if my body is telling me to get real and go back to my superficial life. And I oblige. That’s the sad part. I know I am failing myself and yet somehow I still continue on the path.
I am a fraud, but at least I know it. And knowing is half the battle, Gi Joe reminds me. But wait, I feel like a fraud but does that really make me one? It’s the question that nags at me. Who am I, really? Am I the thoughts in my head or am I to be defined by actions? What is it about slamming these letters down that makes me feel like a light weight heavy lifter? Is it the guilt that the joy I felt when I first learned to transform my thoughts into reality seems buried, muffled underneath the chorus of doubt and guilt? Or is it just not meant to be?
Should I remain a fraud or for once be the man I said I wanted to be?
