I’m sitting at my desk, laptop open before me, typing these words. The desk is at the end of my room, against the wall, and my back faces the open door. Old pens clutter the edge. I don’t know how I got so many, but I hardly use them. I type everything now. On the left of my laptop is a tissue box, complete with crumpled tissues next to it. A testament to the final vestiges of a cold I’ve fought and beaten and am chasing to a humiliating retreat. Behind the laptop is a picture of myself, age 10 standing in front of the sign displaying the library’s hours. Next to that is an expensive greeting card with that has a blue, cloth coat on a coat rack popping out of the paper. A former co-worker gave me that card when she left the company, and I read it whenever I’m feeling depressed. It tells me all the good things I seem to ignore about myself. On the back, it reads, “I hope we stay in touch!” Well, she didn’t make good on her end of that bargain.
It’s Saturday night, and I’m stuck with the familiar feeling of my time evaporating with every second. Just vanishing into thin air with each tick of the clock. Saturday night, Sunday, school, homework, work, homework, school, homework, work, and when will I have time to write again? Recently, I feel like life has become a series of tasks I have to do before I can do what I want. And that those tasks are so consuming, so taxing, that I’m exhausted when I finish. Worse yet, I don’t even know what I want. Except for tonight. I’m going to use my time tonight. I’m going to write a story.
A happy story. The prospect bounces around in my head without gaining any traction. Through the reflection of my screen, I notice my sister walk in. I turn to her, arm slung over the back of my chair. “I’m going to write a happy story.”
“Is that possible?”
I laugh. She’s really been on a roll with the sarcasm lately. I’ve never written a happy story before. The closest I’ve gotten is a story that ends with the same disappointment as waking from a fantastic dream. I don’t know if I can do it. It would be as much of a stretch as writing about love, something completely out of my frame of reference. I reply, “Maybe I’ll write a story about how I can’t write happy stories.” I open an onscreen notepad and type a few ideas, not noticing when my sister leaves. Hanging out with a writer must be boring. I slip my headphones back on, slow, stirring rock turning in my ears. Then, I open a document and start typing.
I can’t decide if writing is a reflection of the state of one’s soul, or a mere magnification of certain aspects. Those are quite limited categories, since there are many kinds of writing, so I’ll stick with fiction. Hemingway says,“there is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” This is true, in a way. A writer’s personality shines through in all his works, so when you read this, you’re seeing a piece of me. But you’re not seeing my whole soul are you? That’s preposterous! I doubt I have the skill to articulate every urging, memory, disposition, or notion of the soul or the unfathomable profundity of its intricacies. Rather, you’re seeing what I choose to show you, some subtext I include, and some that sneaks betwixt the letters, unbeknownst to me. Furthermore, I choose what aspects of life and self to focus on depending on the story. And some stories include personalities completely alien to my own, even if my biases influence how they are portrayed. But Hemingway is right, we writers do bleed on paper. I’ve never actually read Hemingway, but I have the audacity to compare myself to him.
I can’t really wrap my head around how to write a happy story. Good stories need conflict. They need action. Drama. Violence. Loss. Good stories need unhappy things. But, good, happy stories and good, unhappy stories share the preceding traits, so there must be something else that separates them. The ending! My stories all end with people dying or some hilarious body horror or a depressing twist. Well, I think I made a hopeful story once. No, I made a depressing story with a hopeful ending. So, if a tale can still be unhappy even if it ends well, what makes a happy story? The outlook. The mood, the voice, the word choice, the implications. It’s a whole new style that requires muscles I haven’t flexed. Would I drop the sarcasm? The cynicism? The commentary? I shake my head. I don’t want to write a happy story. I want to write what I feel. And what do I feel?
Unhappy. Not really as a mood, as a mentality. Here’s where I bleed on my keyboard. Sure, I smile a lot. Around people. I make jokes. Some say I’m funny. But no one would describe me as happy. I’ve heard “well-adjusted.” I love that phrase. Well-adjusted. Adjusted to what? The horrible reality of life? It just comes with the implication that the world is so startling, so crushing, that you have to adjust to it with coping mechanisms. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t think I have anything to complain about. So, if my life is so great, why do I have an unhappy temperament? Why, when I put my figurative pen to paper to write a happy story, does this blather spew forth instead? Maybe it’s chemical. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s what I focus on. Maybe it’s the music I listen to. Who knows?
I only know that I used to visualize my soul as a dark chamber filled with swirling, black clouds. A tumultuous environment of bitterness, sorrow, anger, frustration, and pain churning around the axis of my heavy heart. A place where hope is called fraud, where love is called lie, and where happiness is a pipedream. That’s the place from which my stories grow. That’s the void I see when I peek over the precipice. That’s the blackness in my blood mashed between the keys.
The stories I write are mine. They are reflections of my soul. Magnifications of my aspects. My stories are my blood shed and forged into letters, sentences, paragraphs. They are the natural outpouring from the well of my experience and perception. They are detailed insights into how I process and relate to the world. I get up and find my sister, saying, “I didn’t write a happy story. It’s not who I am.”
She smirks. “Well, I knew that.”
No comments:
Post a Comment