Not today

There are some days that I don’t feel like writing about anything introspective.

I suppose that’s a good thing. If I was inside my own head all the time, I would probably get pretty claustrophobic. If I’m permanently under storm clouds it’s nice to step out once in a while and remember what it feels like not to be soaked all the time. It’s like I’ve flown to Arizona for the weekend to get a break from the gray, rainy days of my home in Seattle.

The catch, is to keep writing even when I don’t feel so introverted. When the dead tree limbs of crippling anxiety crowd the healthy branches of my brain (Braintree! I love MA town names!) I am asphyxiated. Writing in the blog is like stripping all those decaying offshoots and sending then through the industrial size wood chipper parked out on the curb in front of my house, err…body.

But, without practicing, I feel as if the the chipper is simply a tool for clearing away all the dead things. It isn’t constructive at all. It just creates a big pile of dead wood that may be used for potpourri or to cover the driveways of other people’s houses.

As an aside, picture my negative chewed up thoughts as air fresheners in other people’s houses, er……bodies. Weird. Is this like a one man’s meat may be another man’s poison type of thing?
Anyway, back to practicing. I need to practice to get “better” or “experienced” in my writing. However, this draws in a whole other line of questions involving nature versus nuture including: “Can someone ‘become’ a better writer through practice?” and “Is there a point in your life where you simply have to play the cards you’ve accumulated through your ‘formative’ years?” This final question may be related the point in Synecdoche where Caden absolves his directorial chair and becomes an extra in his own play, taking orders and living out his life under the direction of someone else. He’s stopped creating and learning and doing, he’s simply running out the clock. He’s the old dog that can’t learn new any new tricks.

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(I am looking at The Onion for a while, I’ll be back in a sec)

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And we’re back. And going into the break, we were trying to tease out what writing practicing actually is. Perhaps it is the act of forming sentences? Of trying on different phrases and getting to use them comfortably? Is it really this simple? It sounds almost like trying on a few denim jackets until you get one that fits (As another aside, I never had a jean jacket and I desperately want one even though they look ridiculous in any state above the Mason-Dixon line).

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Maybe it’s endeavoring to place new and exciting words in these balky, attempted sentences. Like having a selection of brand new Ferrari’s to steal off the dealer’s lot, one at a time.

Note: this may backfire when you use a word who’s meaning you only peripherally know. For instance, when you use a word like ‘jejune’ to describe your own writing ( this actually happened in a recent IM conversation) only to figure it is in fact the opposite of what you thought it meant is much like throwing your legs over the door of the convertible, giddily landing behind the wheel, and realizing you have no idea how to drive stick.

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Or perhaps it’s not any of these. Perhaps it’s cramming as many awkward metaphors into a single blog posting like stuffing a sleeping bag in…….ah, forget it.