I Was Here
I open a new notebook, take up a pen – one I do not like, but my options are limited – and quickly begin staining the unlined, clean, white pages. If I do not act fast, this notebook will remain empty – possibly for years. If I do not seize the fear of what to write with a bold willingness to write anything, I will become paralyzed over what to say. The opening pages of most of my notebooks tend to be page after page of utter rubbish — stunning dribble, dashed across formerly pristine paper. At some point, after the anxiety over what to say and the attending doubt about my own abilities has wained, I come to the pages relaxed — ready to work — and on occasion, to surprise myself. I am not the most insightful person, nor the most gifted, but I do have my moments.
I began writing when I was ten years old, and since I never enrolled in a writing program where I was pushed to embrace a particular form, I have remained free and willing to write whatever comes into my head — poetry, stories, essays, self-pitying diaries, lists, letters to people I send or — sometimes — don't send. The notebooks stack up, an ever growing archive — a record, sometimes intentional, sometimes not — of my own haphazard journey — the evolution of my own mind and personal philosophy, the successes and setbacks that have formed the topography of my time on earth. Looking back through them can be a cringe inducing experience and, on occasion, it can be astounding. I think every writer shares the experience of looking back at old notebooks and coming across something so well written that it leaves us breathless — and having no memory of having written it — mystified. We tend to be so critical of our work that we often overlook the gems right in front of us.
Last week a friend in Pennsylvania sent me a series of photographs. They were pictures of collages, drawings, and pieces of writing I was doing in 2003 or so. It was a sudden, unexpected visit from a former self — and not one that left me cringing. Rather, I was proud and felt profound contentment with who I had been, and with who I am now. In that evening I could see the intervening years stretched out like a mountain range, and all that I have done since like bright trees, rivers and soaring birds creating the ecosystem of my life. Some things were left to rot. Some work — like some trees — stunted — unable to bloom or bear fruit. Other works towering like Redwoods, and some so delicate and skittish that a rabbit seems calm by comparison. It is said that writers live two lives — the one in this plane of life, paying bills, doing the dishes and maintaining relationships — and the other lost in the vast expanse of imagination and creativity — conversing with the muses, returning to earth with glittering eyes and a racing pen — ready to create something that, even if it is not a regal Redwood or a golden eagle in a crystalline sky, will be loved (even if only by the writer), nonetheless.
In September I spent five days in Lisbon following the footsteps of Fernando Pessoa and José Saramago. You have to be a lover of literature to understand why looking at someone's scribbled up notebooks, writing desk, note cards or personal library is a thrilling experience. How inspiring it is — how it feels like you are touching someone's hand, or even their heart. They are so personal, our notebooks, and seeing the revisions — the crossed out sentences and abandoned passages — the notes running up and down the margins — the contours of another's penmanship was an intimate experience — one that left me feeling more connected to these people and their work than I had been prior to gazing down through the archival glass with greedy eyes. The last morning of my stay I sat on the terrace outside the Fundação José Saramago, having coffee, scribbling in my ever more beat up diary and gazing at the olive tree that stands guard over his ashes, thinking about the mortality of the body and the immortality of words — watching my life become eternal (or at least quite lengthened) by the ever growing stacks of notebooks and all the clean white pages I have stained so shamelessly — leaving my own small mark — a personal graffiti to say:
I was here.