Wednesday, March 03, 2010

It's been over a year since I last wrote. I miss my voice. I liked the idea of myself as a blogger, but the reality of it was disappointing. I can never quite figure out why I stop doing things, or don't continue things I once enjoyed. When they excavate my brain in 2 million years, there will be an interesting geologic story to be told. My changes and reasons seem to subscribe to a vast scale of time. I think about how much I enjoy reading my friends' blogs and peeking into the psyches of strangers through their blogs and I wish I could be part of the inter-blast. I am, at heart or by training, a lurker. I would like to train to be a contributor.

I am listening to a fantastic album - Country Club by John Doe and the Sadies. It makes me want to write, to use my voice to share feeling and cause feeling. Ooh, shivers, that album just led seamlessly into Folsom Prison Blues. Sometimes iTunes is a little creepy in its perfection. Country Club is about John Doe's love and appreciation of country songwriting and music, so hearing Johnny Cash right after him feels like the best illustration.

I have been trying to think about how to contribute. Am I incubating, preparing, germinating? Or is this cowardice, something that needs to be weaned, served, nipped in the bud? I try to have respect for my pace. I alternate between faith and impatience. Can those go together or do they require alternation? I think I can hold both at once - faith in my imaginative life, mixed with impatience at the pace of its manifestation.

Just listened to the wonderful part of Busted when Johnny laughs. "No laughing during the song. Don't you know this is being recorded?"

2 comments:

Karl Hakkarainen said...

Welcome back.
One bit of advice given me a long time ago was "Don't tell me what you think. Tell me what you did." The advice, by the way, was not about writing, but about living.
Often I won't write (or talk or do) because I'm too embarrassed to admit that I don't know what just happened.
Also, the shortcut is the same old, non-shortcut that there always was - practice. This piece, The J-Walk Blog: Musical Talent And Practice Time, reminds me that the real talent - independent of the ability to write, sing, play the piano, play basketball, eat competitively - is the talent for practice.
Whatever the task, with practice, it'll get easier, but it never gets easy.

tiffky doofky said...

Thanks for reading, RB! That bit of advice sounds familiar from writing classes I've taken. It is good advice for writing, and for life. One stumbling block has been that I am often unable to come up with anything that I've "done" besides thinking. Thinking is my main occupation! However, this conclusion might have more to do with how I see myself than how I am. Perhaps a change in perspective, occasioned by a bit of practice, will open up some possibilities.