Tonto Strikes Again

So I haven't written in a very long time, anything worthwhile anyway, and it's strange to pick up again.  The keyboard feels like an entirely foreign machine beneath my fingertips, and the art of crafting thoughts daunts me because I feel I have nothing to say.  I never thought it would come to this:  me desperately clutching a pad of paper (metaphorically, of course) and running after a truckload of verbiage anxious to rummage through its assortment because I feel I haven't any of my own, but it has.

When I scroll down the Facebook feed (guilty as charged), read people's posts and find someone that composes good sentences, I always start a little.  This tiny jarring of emotion, the one that used to delight me "Hark, another writer!", now pricks at my soul.  I admit, I've become a tad bit jealous.  Frankly, I don't know if I can write anymore, crafting my world with the same depth and passion that I used to...

Day after day the pen sits on my desk and the computer lies untouched.  I usually forget about them even existing, caught up with life as I am, but sometimes my eyes travel to those lonely, dusty objects and I pine for what used to be.  I remember lazy afternoons spent with my journal in cozy cafe's writing about everything and nothing.  Paper, pen and the computer were familiar friends that I relied heavily on everyday to air out my universe and bring me pleasure.  Seems I was always spritzing up my sentences with new vocabulary and pathways of thought.  Moving my hand across the page was akin to eating chocolate those days; stimulating, orgasmic and very, very rewarding.

Nowadays it's different.  I feel dismembered from the very tools that used to feel like extensions of my soul.  Whereas before my writing took precedence over everything in my life, now everything in my life seems to take precedence over it.  To be fair, I have a boyfriend now, my father passed away and a plethora of other happenings have filled my plate and my emotions, but rather than taking pen to paper and airing them out, I have chosen a silent path and slowly but surely the distance has grown between us...

So where am I today?  Well, seeing as how I still can still piece sentences together (whew!) I'm not as far away as I believed from the shores of self-expression, but the joy and anticipation of crafting material still eludes me.  I once read that writing changes as one evolves and it makes sense.  Maybe that's what happened to me.  For a good while, I was smitten by the entire creative process that allowed me to make my inside world a reality.

Now, I view writing as a more mechanical act, perfunctory in nature and practical in essence.  I'm not as infatuated by the craft, though I have enormous respect for it (hey, it's hard to write well) and the urgency to self-express is not as all-consuming as it once was.  But to be honest, I can still hear writings' siren call.  It beckons and teases my soul more often than I'd like, promising riches if I will only come and I can't escape it, try as I might.  I find myself filling journals, scribbling in notebooks, writing on my hand...on everything I can!  It's like Jesus; it never leaves me, though I leave it.

I can't shake it off, writing is a part of me and I guess even though I've changed, I've stayed the same.  I am and always will be, a writer.




  

Older

I never thought it would happen to me, growing older.  It did.  I look in the mirror and suddenly the smooth contours of my face, the ones I've ALWAYS relied on, my chums, my comrades, now have the audacity to entertain small etchings for all to see.  My skin is losing its elasticity and the fountain of youth from whence I thirstily drank with nary a second thought, the one I believed would never dry up, is now starting to tighten its belt.

My body is changing, too - no way around it.  At first, the differences were subtle:  not being as fast on my feet when I danced, a little bit of extra weight around my middle and other small nuances.  I blew them off as nothing worth ruffling my feathers about and continued on my merry way.  Then a few years later, it hit me:  I wouldn't be going back, not now not ever to the glory days of youth.  No, that part of my life was over.  The spry little gadabout that once graced the streets of San Francisco has gone home and closed the door behind her.

 All is not lost, however.  That same girl has now emerged a woman carrying a different kind of grace.  Not just of the physical sort, but rather one that comes from the inside and cannot fade with the passage of time - a charitable, kind, loving grace that flows from the soul, and not just the body.  Good thing.

Don't get me wrong, I still consider myself to be attractive - I like the way my face hangs together and I haven't put myself out to pasture yet (I've a long way to go, truth be told), but looking good now requires props that it once didn't and the ghost of my hard lived life taps it's long, skinny finger on my shoulder every day as I stiffly get out of bed, a reminder that I am not 24 anymore.  But even with all these considerations, it is well with my soul.  I find that I am working more in harmony with and not as viciously against the changes that the passage of time has inevitably brought and for this I am glad.

I would not be able to do this without the help of The Almighty.  It is He who lifts my head and tells me I am beautiful, worthy, loved.  He who has made it bearable to continue even when the vestiges of my youth have begun to wane and maturity settle in.  I have also found a good man who loves me, who is attracted to my inner qualities (and not just my outward self) the softer, gentler ones that have, almost imperceptibly, appeared in the interim between seasons.

So what to say?  It's not so bad reaching a new vista, a higher ground.  Sure, you have to shed skin to get there and that sometimes hurts, but the end is a glorious new beginning.  And that's all good.