The Dimensions of Words and Writing

{Here I sit. Homework, untouched for the most part, rests before me in a jumbled array of dejection. Pencil dangling idly in one hand, I stare off into that unending space, that dimension which can exist along side any reality without any metaphysical difficulties whatsoever. The last fizz of my tepid carbonated water whispers seductively of its very solitary state, vying for recognition. The sun’s sweltering rays, magnified by my kitchen window, caress my face in attempts to elicit some reaction. My blasé surroundings solicit my every sympathy, but in vain. I am in that haze of ethereal oblivion; I’ve just received literary inspiration, and have spiraled into to those unremitting, fathomless depths.

I shiver, an action that brings me hurtling painfully back to reality. I find myself intruiged, rather poetically I think, by the endearingly personified nature of everything around me. My kitchen cabinets seem burnished, shimmering in the evening warmth. The sun appears to smile, showering me with effulgent, rainbow shafts of light. The chair I’ve settled in embraces me tenderly. My pencil is clearly an artist’s friend, and the uncompleted derivatives of f(x) lying before me surely hold the key to the universe. Everything is ode-worthy and nothing is commonplace. I reach for a bright, clean piece of paper—what magnanimous paper!—and let the words, like living things, spill to the page.}

Use your words…

Words are like fibers of a tapestry, endowing a layer of beauty to the dank, flaking wall of time—even when they compose cliché and hyperbolic phrases. I’ve always loved their versatility, their cunning, their enabling power to navigate through any entanglement of thought. Since I was small, I’ve been amazed by the many levels of senses through which literature can be experienced.  It began with simple construction and syntax. Disconcerted yet awestruck, I watched the silhouetted female profiles on Electric Company assemble word after word: B—Ox. Box! F—Ox. Fox! M—An. Man! From Bob’s Books to Ralph Waldo Emerson, I’ve long been fascinated with the scope of the English language.

I learned to enjoy writing much later than I learned to enjoy reading the writing of others. Despite this, writing eventually found a host in my being like a parasite. Although I am still in very premature stages of the process, there are a few things whose importance have become apparent to me. This group of things is comprised primarily of the following:  emotion, enlightenment, and a bit of healthy plagiarism (say what, now?)

Actively Insane

I’ve always been impartial to the sappy stereotype of the high-shcool diary consisting of typified teenaged girl dialect: “Dear diary, blah, blah, blah.” Thou shalt abstain from feckless writing! If I’m are going to expend all that mental and physical energy required to put words on paper, it had better be worth it…a depiction of my laziness. And a paradoxical one at that--I avoid work unless it’s hard? Oh well—my lunacy is no secret. For me, it has to convey emotion. It has to be me. Things that happen to me are not me. Writing is not a passive enterprise. Today was okay. I was assigned a lot of homework. So-and-so is said this about what’s-her-face… By the sounds of it, “today” sort of happened to me. Emotion doesn't have to be profound, it needn't even be complicated, but it is sincere, and it is kinetic. I have a tendency to emote all over the page in front of me.

A Demanding Mistress

I happened upon one of my journals from Jr. high the other day. Amid the sappiness, I found this sappiness:

I have come to several conclusions today; education is a choice, happiness is an attitude, and I am falling out of love with {so and so} . Hmmm…love? No. Indeed, between us there was no austere silence, but a vapid listlessness, a warmth and a comfort of acceptance…


{it gets worse}

Is this excerpt a bit over the top? Alright, I’ll admit—it might be so high up that it’s suffocating for lack of oxygen. And I’ll admit that this folly has often been the cause of those 3-month to 2-year gaps in journal writing…sometimes I just don’t feel up for being a poet. I can't fulfill my own requirement of artful genius. I never really do. So I don't even try. My progeny will wonder where I disappeared to during those gaping cavities. Maybe if I were willing to simplify (practical-ify, more like), I’d actually be more productive. Melodrama is a demanding mistress, but for me, often well worth one’s time in terms of future significance/gratification; who wants to re-read journal entries about homework assignments, or an essay void of voice and passion? True, I have often been criticized for my “fluffy”, “over-complex”, “incomprehensible”, “incoherent” and even “delusional” writing. My affinity for words in general has evolved into a propensity to—well…simply use too many of them. Additionally, I tend to poem-ify topics that are (seemingly) empirically artless and mundane; rheumatoid arthritis, for example, or the composition of whitefish blastula.  I’m endeavoring to veer from writing all assignments in a way that could easily be versified.

And I said: Let there be intelligibility!

I soon began to view the act of writing as a way of achieving enlightenment (for however brief a period). Right now, thoughts definitely flow more fluidly and artfully from my mind through my fingers to medium (typing/ writing to paper etc.) than from my mind through my vocal chords. I flow from notion to notion far more candidly and eloquently autographically than vocally.  Which can be annoying. Most people can articulate their thoughts vocally (which is vastly more useful in terms of day-to-day life). As for me, piteously, my preference originates from the desire to actually be able to express myself (a rare occurrence in my day-to-day life).Writing allows me to pick words out of the swirling debris of consciousness and place them in some semblance of an order. In this way, it has become a sort of personal revelation for me. Once my thoughts have materialized on the page, they are real. So its not merely a narrative account, but an act of realization, and even creation.

Art is Dead

Lastly, writing, like any art form, is subject to theft (gasp!). In music, there is no originality. It has all been done. It is the slight artistic variations that allow the art to continue and thrive. In jazz particularly, there is an unrestricted vault of licks, riffs and progression that composers approach and use at their discretion. Although the world of literature imposes slightly more stringent restrictions, a similar system exists. Writing, although it can be the purest reproduction of someone's exclusive and personal sentiment, is also subject to variation based on the author’s exposure to other literature. This inherent bias in everyone’s personal arsenal of words and phrases cannot be helped. 

In my room, on the bottom, right corner of my desk, rests The List. The List consists of any word or phrase that I have read or heard and found aesthetically, aurally, or otherwise pleasing for some reason or another. They are random and widely varying. Such words as lithe, porcelain, serendipity, lilt, panacea, cadence…shivers. What’s that? You didn’t know I was a dork? Well, now you know. Phrases such as “a blur of bodies”, “purple and blue like swirling oil”, “as vivid as a specter”, “fixtures flaking with rust”…sigh. It’s like they fill in the cracks somewhere in my brain. I often refer to The List when I can’t think of a way to depict precisely what is transpiring in the mess of my mind, using it to direct my thoughts and create accessible visages of thought (not quoting them exactly, mind you). Initially this may seem corrupt, or at least dishonest. However, I rationalize this behavior with the assertion that Billy Collins wouldn’t mind one bit.

So, as middle-schoolers are taught to end their papers...

"In conclusion"

Although my trail through the mire of incompetent writing has been (and continues to be) long and often characterized by trepidation and loss, it has been as rewarding as arduous. Though not every piece I’ve written has been the picture of eloquence (okay, not even a few), I try to entangle every word with the lucid tendrils of my emotion.  And every time I become lost in the haze of literary inspiration (even if the product is only inspiring to me) I emerge a little more sure of who I am. And that’s good enough for me.

          

{I blink several times before my eyes adjust to the dimness. I’m sitting in the center of a vaporous and misty room,  “Where am I?” I venture. The vapor subsides somewhat and a streak of light like opaque, gossamer paint, reveals my muse for the moment. All is lucidly clear.  For now, my disembodied, effervescent thoughts transcend the wall of consciousness, ready for me to put them into words. To make them real. Don’t talk to me now; I’m writing. }

The Joy of Unread Books?

At any given moment, my house is littered with a number of unread books. Some I’ve started but abandoned; others I keep meaning to get to. The precarious stacks on the bedside table, the desk, the bookshelves—the ones that aren't occupied by homework, dinners-from-Christmas-past, hair products or bills, that is—inch ever higher, threatening to entomb us in our home “Cask of Amantillado” style. Two overflowing grocery bags sit on the kitchen counter, where they’ll gather dust until I eventually take them to the Strand. When I finally have the time and resolve to read something new, I become a promiscuous commitment-phobe, taking up with another book nightly until I find the one I’m ready to go the the distance with. And that's just the books that I have an inkling to read. What about The Controversies of Nutrition, or Chemistry: The Structure of Life, or Human Anatomy (third ed.)? In college, the list of arranged relationships is stifling. But for me, the line between loving books and feeling overwhelmed by them is practically imperceptible, and I know I’m not alone in this sentiment. The world needs an expression analogous to having “eyes bigger than your stomach.” Might I propose: bookshelves bigger than your apartment?

My theory? There’s no point in worrying about all those books you haven’t gotten to yet, because very often our preconceived idea of what a book will be is just as valid and enlightening as the book itself might be. I often find that the book I have read is somehow not as exciting as the book I had imagined reading. After all, no book is ever quite as good as it potentially could have been. An unread book is an intoxicating, romantic thing, and the act of reading is, in one sense, destructive: all that possibility is reined in, made finite. Certainly we all have ideas about books we haven’t read before we read them. That’s why we pick them up in the first place. These preconceived ideas can be useful, too: part of the performance of being well-read is the ability to know what a certain writer or novel represents, even if you haven’t actually read them (yet).

I recently came across an article by Kristy Logan, a noted contributer to the New Yorker, entitle "Confined by Pages: The Joy of Unread Books.As a writer, Logan looks to literature as more than a simple diversion. “These books have affected my writing, and I haven’t even read them. Maybe we can learn as much from our expectations of a story as we can from the actual words on the page,” she suggests. In other words, all the unread books on her shelves help Logan conjure ideas for her own writing, and each unread book means one more story she can possibly tell. It’s a powerful idea, but one that’s less useful to the more recreational reader (or the rueful writer).

There’s also a worrying confession tucked away in this counter-intuitive article. “I have about 800 unread books on my shelves,” Logan admits. Anyway you slice it, that’s an awful lot to leave to the imagination. Logan might be O.K. living with the constant reminder of the literature she has yet to consume, but in her circumstances, I know I’d just end up feeling like the poor sap from this classic episode of “The Twilight Zone.” It’s one that never fails to give me the willies. Surely there is joy in the unread book, but for me, it’s only to be found browsing at the bookstore.

(Of course, there is the irony that I sit here burning time writing about how I don't have any time...excuse me while I go read about cardiovascular disease.)

Alia