Zing
Most days I look forward to it
Hell and fury, I hate this damn toaster. Is there a toaster in the world that makes toasting bread simple? Take this one; Krups. The letter u in the brand name should be the letter a. Setting the bloody thing is impossible. A month out of its box, and with 6 settings to suit one’s personal preference, you’d imagine, would you not, that setting the thing at 3 and not 6 will give me medium toasted bread? Nope, setting 3 burns the toast. Setting 2 pops up slices limply hanging over the machine. If I stand over the toaster, something will always distract my attention. I offer the fourth burnt slice to Reckless and Ragged. Reckless sniffs the blackness and turns away in disgust. Ragged is too obnoxious to know what is good or bad. I caught him sniffing and chewing on Thunder’s shit in the horse paddock yesterday. But look, is this even interesting? Hell, I bet half of you have stopped reading already.
Let’s forget the damn toaster; I’ll eat a banana.
I seldom leave my house before writing five hundred words, by which time daylight has crept over the Mendocino hills, and Reckless and Ragged are scratching at the door impatiently to head down to the beach. There are brilliant people in the world; that is what I meant when I told you about the complex workings of the toaster. There will be someone who finds it easy to use and will give them a perfect toast.
I have no qualifications to justify my thoughts about writing; or why I like to write. I’ve seen intelligent men fail in life because they lack the grace of good manners and moral fortitude.
Recalling my youth, I was incapable of thinking widely or deeply about anything. Age has afforded me many advantages, not least of which is judgment. I’m not exactly sure when the creativity, or whatever else it is, kicked in to look after a sixty-year-old dreamer. Like the Titanic, I was writing my way to the new world without considering the consequences… or bone-jarring results. Not to mention a sense of drowning.
I’ve written several posts on writing, and why I do it. I can explain it in a word. Freedom.
But it began differently. I wrote to have a woman fall in love with me. Those letters were primitive, in which I tried to send the message that the woman with whom I was falling in love radiated a joy and spirit that I had never encountered. I had been in love, and deeply so, receiving the grace of love from a spectacular woman at a different time in my life. When writing a love letter, I was fifty years old, feeling and acting like an eighteen-year-old. So cliché, I know.
Looking back through those letters, which Jenny keeps bound by the side of the bed, I recall a clumsiness to romance. Honestly, I was a guy doing nothing but living out his life. I had a friend to keep me company on lonely nights. His name was Macallan. We had many stimulating conversations.
Living 6000 miles apart, the writing of letters became a material comfort. There were other things available to me. I had a degree of financial comfort. I could drive or fly anywhere I wished to go before the gas tanks ran dry. Should I end the drive at a restaurant, the food was usually unpalatable; if it was a theatre, the spectacle bored me; end up at a resort. There was nothing to do but drink. If I remained home, I’m visited by the same friends, and conversation soon degrades into argument such as schoolboys enjoy or fight over. The art of living alone was a way of life I had perfected.
I preferred, come spring, a walk in the open air where stunted trees finally blossomed in our community of fields. The dogs barked to play, and the beach was a frisbee distance away.
Jenny won’t have me publish anything I wrote to her of a personal nature. “Those letters are the real you, not to be shared. Promise me.”
Becoming fifty years of age was a real downer. I felt drained. I lived with a complete lack of responsibility. I ate chicken all the time, caught colds regularly, often accompanied with a fever, and felt fatigued. Without getting into it in any profound way, I was diagnosed with cancer. I attended a hospital in Geneva where I remained while receiving brachytherapy treatment. I don’t recommend cancer to promote attention or as the basis to begin a romance.
The writing of letters, receiving Jenny’s devotion at a critical time, and a couple of stubborn assholes who called themselves doctors saved my sixth life. It occurred to me; I was rushing through my lives pretty damn quick. I could go on writing about Jenny’s devotion endlessly. She can be known to get a bit, you know, testy with me. Hard to believe, right?
That was it. That was the beginning of my urge to write.
Today it is an obsession.
I didn’t seek classes to learn to write skills. My grammar knowledge does not stand up for itself. Pathetic and editing feels like a raw tooth. I just write. It is a tremendous feeling. Believe that. I cannot twist it into something less.
It was too much to think that writing completely changed my personality or make me more likable. That would be a foolish thing to say. However, it gave me the freedom to be who the hell I wanted to be on any given day. That was a gift of inexplicable pleasure.
I feel a close connection to many writers found on Medium. Some of whom I feel great affection. Writing gives me the freedom to reflect, even philosophize, weigh things up. What have I learned? What have I still to know? But also, how much I love life and yet remain confused and hurt by it.
The idea of producing a fine piece of work is implausible as I do not understand the principles of grammar, structure, presentation, etc.
I write short pieces of work because I like to see them completed (open to debate) and I can move on. I do not have the temperament to dedicate weeks to writing 100,000 words off the bat. I like the zing when I see a piece published. It’s an exciting feeling to think that other people would read something I’ve written — one, two, maybe ten pairs of eyes on my work. Isn’t that just the best feeling?
The act of writing has caused me to change opinions on many matters. At first, I didn’t notice (such has been my life) and continued to write short pieces that were over-written and had the most fundamental mistakes. Yes, I was hooked to the zing button. I don’t know; maybe five or six years ago, I came around to listening to my compassionate writing voice. I understood I couldn’t write. Oh, I could set down stuff, shape it but as a stand-alone piece, most of my work is sadly lacking in all departments.
I sometimes wonder if poets influenced me more than writers. (I know they are the same, but you get my drift.) I have tried to cover too much ground in too tight a way. I now find myself ready to feel the zing and hope the reader will not mind this diatribe trying to explain something I don’t truly understand myself.
