Writing Again

I write...because.

And four months is a long time not to write.

It's been becoming increasingly harder to tell people, or at least listen to myself tell people, that I major in Creative Writing when I haven't been, well, creatively writing. It crosses my mind every few days -  something to put down on a "to-do" list, only to discard soon thereafter in favor of distraction: a few hours of Spanish tapas, an afternoon walk, online procrastination.

It's not that I haven't wanted to - it's the blank, pale white, useless nothing that's had me tongue-tied.  How could I ever explain the colors of a Patagonian 3:18 AM sunset, other than to ask you to imagine that you'd been out in the middle of the horizon, standing beneath the retreating light, in the middle of the deep red that you've seen so many times from the shore? Never before had the sun set around me, and yet I had nothing to say about it.

How do I tell you about Machu Picchu? How can I remember exactly how it sounded when the two alpacas darted through frightened crowds of tourists until, in the center of one of the wonders of the world, one mounted the other and commenced to fucking?

Maybe its better I can't...

The final moments of writer's block is so often depicted as a moment of realization - where all of a sudden it all comes into focus, and the words flow through your fingers once again, that everywhere you look you see your writing, your words, hanging on fenceposts and in the wrinkles of your bed, waiting to be thrust into the perfect sentence. Well, I've never written a perfect sentence; I never will. And I'll never find words waiting for me. Just sitting down to type has been more attricious than anything else, a sort of guilty emptiness. If i'm not writing, what do I actually do?

And therein exists my fundamental problem. My question of existence, of essence. If I'm not writing, what am I doing? Well, I've watched a few movies, got my hair cut three times, slept a little. Bought a guitar, did a lot of talking, only a little listening, and did some thinking. I changed continents, twice. Saw some family and friends, only to move on again. I felt increasingly smaller in a bigger world.

Only now does it all come together again, though, slowly and smokily, where mists of ideas float by, and unless you want to inhale, you fan your face. No one forces me to write, to spend an hour plus blogging, putting in and taking out commas, as though somehow I'm preventing the bastardization of the English language. I'm actually contributing - "blogging" is a really shitty word.

I'd never thought about why I'd been writing until I wasn't. There's an inherent vulnerability that exists - you get to judge me and my thoughts without my even knowing you can read. Yet, I like you. I'm more honest with you than with most people. You don't ask too many questions, and no small-talk is necessary. We've got a good thing going, you and me.

Yet I'd never asked you any questions, until recently. All I asked was, "Why?" And it took you four months to answer, "Because."

All in all, its nice to be back.