The story of my thoughts
Chapter 1 - I guess I'm writing a book now
Yes, indeed—I guess I’m writing a book now.
I’ve been writing a book for two months, actually. This chapter here (which I suppose functions also as an introduction), however, is almost entirely unrelated to what I’ve written thus far, existing mostly as a result of my whimsical desire to entertain myself for the time being with a tangential mountain, so to speak, to remove myself from the mundanity that writing and editing a solitary document can sometimes be.
From the time I started it (which was last week), this piece has turned into quite a lot more than I ever thought it would. You can’t see what I’m talking about, both because I’ve not posted nor written the majority of the form I anticipate it will take, but I sense this “story of my thoughts” may become something substantial, at the very least, as a project for myself.
So perhaps I have two books in the making, or perhaps they’ll come together eventually as one. I don’t know. What I do know, and it’s been calling my name for some time now, is that a book feels intuitively the most natural evolution, the most proper next step in my writing practice, the most effective medium for me to express all that’s going on within.
Whatever amalgamation of words makes its way from my brain onto the page emerges from the same waters . . . Everything I write is a different branch upon the same tree. All I can really do is keep writing and growing. Where there is opportunity for sunlight, you will find my leaves. Making everything cohesive is a matter of happenstance. I do my best, but I am by no means the captain.
I admit, I’ve only turned today’s post into chapter 1 because trying to put this story together has driven me a little mad. I did not know when I started writing it last week that I’d be opening a much bigger can of worms than can be taken down in one solitary post. I need to take a breath.
Though I’m proud of all I’ve got so far, what proceeds in the lines below is an accident, a wager, a shot aimed with hope into the unknown. Considering my “commitment issues,” I can’t promise to anyone that anything will come of this attempt. I think it will, and I’m gonna do my best to make sure it does, but I cannot be certain. I have no plan because plans, to me, spell a step away from what’s right here.
The only thing I can say with certainty is that I believe whatever I do end up posting, if I post it at all, will be worth reading.
As I was thumbing through my journals in search of a worthy structure from which to ravenously forge another post this week, I realized that my writing is a little boring. Not necessarily in the way I say things (although that could always use improvement), but in the things I say stuff about. So I want to tell you today about something that isn’t so boring. I want to tell you a story.
I am writing this story at least from the start for no reason other than the fact that I find it interesting—and hope as a consequence that you do too—though I’m not certain it’ll end with that intention, or lack thereof, intact. I admit I don’t know as I’m typing these very words which story I am going to tell you. I’ve got a lot of interesting stories. I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences. But which to start with? Which is most important? And why, most importantly, is it most important?
Perhaps I should commence with a preamble of sorts . . . a slightly related account of what led me to the conclusion above.
It’s come to my attention recently that I’m a little upset, as we all surely are—as we all realize one day after reflecting upon that whir we call childhood—that I’ve not done a better job documenting my life. (My mother was right: I would one day appreciate all those pictures she took.)
My journals consist mostly of mundane strings tied endlessly together, some of which morph on occasion into something admirable (this I feel is the case the more I write, thankfully), others of which are mere selfish blabs . . . fruitless endeavors to sound interesting and whatnot, all of which are grounded in cerebral fluff.
In reality, in the real world, so many interesting things happen—big and small, in plain sight and shrouded by the magical folds of whatever-this-all-is—things I’ve missed documenting, now mostly lost to time. Of course, they do say your life will flash before your eyes right as you pass on—and perhaps this is a gift . . . perhaps we forget so we may remember all the beauty at once in that precious moment . . . perhaps memory is the world’s greatest and most necessary painkiller. But it’d be nice to recollect and capture (and I want to make a habit of it now, too) at least one of these tangible happenings right here today, if only to appreciate this most incomprehensible experience just a little bit more. Because to live a life forgotten feels empty in a way.
Now, I know we’re not forgotten. I know there’s much more to life than what science can verify. Where I come from, it is believed that in addition to God (can you add to God?), our loved ones from times past are right there with us, witnessing us, backing us when needed, and cheering us on the rest of the time.
I don’t think this means, however, that we oughta just kick back and hope those above do it all for us. What is that joke about the person praying for God to do something for them, to which he responds, in essence, that he gave them everything they needed to get it done?
I don’t think God wants us, just because he is, to sit there and mope around. Because what, then, would be the point of it all? Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing again, right?
For some reason, stories have become a part of who we are. Of what we do. There’s something more than sentimental about documentation. I mean, sentimentality might have its own utility, but I think it’s even deeper than that.
It is a writer’s duty to be honest. All of the great writers are honest. Or so I’ve been told. I don’t suspect dishonesty in this sentiment, though, since I’ve experienced it myself. If you’re not honest, you’re simply not going to write well. And I think it’d be fair to say that the more honest one is, the better their writing.
And so, if I am being honest here, the first thing I’ve got to admit as part of this story is that I am not much of a storyteller.
I’ve never been much of a storyteller. Ideas have proven a good lot of the time to captivate me more than concrete reality. This attempt, if you couldn’t already tell, is a step outside my zone of comfort.
I really don’t know how I was ever drawn to literature in the first place. Reading between the lines is simply not my forte. My mom said on the phone one time when I was a boy, “The writing was on the wall!” I asked, when she hung up, “Who wrote on the wall?”
More importantly, I thought, why would someone write on the wall?
You’d think an individual more interested in fluff could easily distinguish what’s going on in an instant like this, but no! And it wasn’t willful ignorance! It was blatant! Genuine!
I say I was interested in fluff as if the fluff was weightless, but it’s the fluff to me that mattered the most. The way I saw it, the fluff, like a mycelic mass, touched the roots of all that was. It was fluff to everyone else, but it was to me as good as heavy metal—myself, then, an alchemist. I couldn’t read between the lines . . . I wanted to read beneath them.
It’s weird, though, because I have always been a writer! From the start, pen and paper were my medium of choice. How could I not read between the lines? It’s all I did!
Perhaps I just didn’t fit into convention.
Yes! It could be the case that my process of documentation is merely different from what’s typical. The way I see things isn’t the way most others see them. I don’t see what happens, you know. My world is rife with nuance. I can’t just tell the story. The story, in my eyes, is but a fraction of what happened. I don’t even know if it is the central structure to which I tie my analysis. Can analysis be a narrative? Can my thoughts be a story?
So much more happens than what happens. So much happens that I sometimes don’t even notice what actually happens. A surface disturbance indicates to me a teeming scene below.
(A Note from
.)I suppose, now, that I’ve arrived by necessity at what must be my story.
Water. I love water. I always have.
It and I are distinguishable in some ways, but according to Ms. Frizzle, from what I remember, about 60% of me would not be without it.
None of us would, though . . . My relationship with that life-giving liquid is not different in this regard. So what is it about water that I find so especially compelling? For what reason do I prefer what’s going on below?
You must understand where I’m from.
Now, before I slander my origins, I’d like to, just real quickly, profess gratitude for my childhood: I am incredibly blessed. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Mom and Dad. I feel about as blessed and loved and cared for as a human child could be. What I say in the lines below is an attempt to paint a portrait of what made me me, not any sort of complaint or grievance, for I’ve resolved most of those feelings by now.
I’m from the suburbs. The suburbs of Chicago.
The suburbs are a land utterly trodden by machines. Of course, the city is too, and even more obviously so . . . The suburbs are, instead, subtle about it—like they want you to think whichever neighborhood you’re in sprouted just as naturally from the ground as the forest that was there before it did.
Most everything in my immediate vicinity from year 0 to 18 was manicured. Directed, imposed upon, commanded to be a certain way or at risk of being torn up by the roots.
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