Why I Don't Write

I haven't written in a long time.  I'm not even a dried up desert anymore, I'm emptiness.  I am a prisoner stuck deep in a well, with the walls so close that he can't stretch out his legs.  I am at the bottom of the well with the walls closing in, the air so scarce that it is hard to take in a full breath.  Up above the circle of light is so far that it looks like the Moon in the perpetual darkness of my prison.  All I do every moment of my existence is lie curled up in a fetal position on the floor and try not to think.  Thinking hurts too much, making each moment of my life unbearable, raw with pain.

************************************************

I haven't written in a while, and I start to realize why.  I can't let go of reality enough to write a fictitious story.  The real life is beating up on it's characters leaving them helpless, whereas in a book, a character always has a choice.

Cancer.  In the real world, cancer is the true villain, scary, merciless, undefeated.  It strikes anyone who has a body and is alive, regardless of age, race, sex, and social class.  It kills off innocent children and vicious dictators.  Cancer truly knows no bounds.

In a novel, a heroine will find her true meaning in life while fighting and beating it, or if she is so unlucky and actually dies, her legacy will be continued in the next generation.  The true friendships will be forged, and the old ones will become more solid.  The whole world will weep if she dies, and on her death bed, she will finally understand how truly remarkable her simple life has been, and how she has  blessed everyone she's ever touched with her existence.

Love.  In real life, you  beat yourself up for loving someone so much that you can't find the strength to leave the abuser, or cheater, or just a plain asshole.  You find yourself stuck for 15 years in a meaningless unhappy relationship just because it's easier not to rock the boat, and what will happen to the children.

But in a rose-colored romance, the heroine is swept away in the arms of a perfect, brooding but caring, handsome prince, and a man always does the right thing while his woman is sobbing on his shoulder in her PMS-induced sorrow. (Which is to hold her tight, and pat her on the back, and whisper gently, and kiss away her tears, instead of accusing her of being moody, storming out the door, and driving off in a midlife-crisis muscle car with the tires screeching.)

Job.   In this economic depression world of lost jobs and foreclosures, every one of us has been struggling with being laid off, or underpaid, or overworked.  One can't fathom to leave the stable but mediocre and mundane job with 401K and health benefits right now in order to pursue one's aspirations and start own business selling cupcakes or moving to TImbuktu to volunteer as a non-profit lawyer saving women's lives.  You have a spouse to clean for, children to feed, aging parents to care for.  You forget that you always wanted to be a juggler, or an icecream taster, and you keep on doing your 12-hour a day office job with the boss from Hell, because damn it you need the money to pay off your student loan, and keep timely payments on your second mortgage, and fix that carburetor in your car, and pay for your child's afterschool activities.  Who has the time to find a perfect job?

In the self-help book universe, the career advisers tell us that YES WE CAN get this perfect job in this failed economy.  We just have to believe in ourselves and try, try, try, try, try, again. Not meant as fiction, but surely functioning as one, the self help job search books are full of fantasy.  The hero always wins in the end and opens his own business of creating a user-friendly natural hair dye for puppies that he dreamed of since he was 5.  He rakes up oodles of money in record time, and becomes a self-made millionaire.  His story is featured on Oprah and Good Morning America, he is interviewed by Barbara Walters, and his show is syndicated on Bravo TV network.

Life's Purpose.  In reality you are struggling every day to juggle your overbearing cruel boss, your needy spouse, your wining children, your conniving ex-spouse, your sleep, your health, your faith, and your sanity, which you constantly feel slipping away.  Add on top of that loss of job, troubles in love, or cancer, and you got yourself a REAL reality that the majority of the population is facing.  And in some countries, there's also war, hunger, persecution, sex slavery, genocide.  That's real life, without hope, without the light at the end of the tunnel.

But you still have your dream, buried away yet surfacing when you see yourself running freely with the wind in your sleep, or catch a whiff of magnolia fragrance, or glimpse the way light is reflecting yellow autumn trees in a lake. It catches you off guard now and then, inspires you for a moment, and then dissipates into the usual state of despair.  You'll never reach that dream.  You'll always struggle here in Hell on Earth  toiling away like the rest of us.

In a novel, some Paulo Coelho, or Antoine de Saint-Exupery, or  Serdar Ozcan, or Richard Bach, will have the audacity to create characters that deny all life's struggles and strip away the shackles of the everyday existence and live on the periphery of societal norms.  They cross a desert barefoot, they fly with seagulls, they talk with roses, they make wine out of water, just like Jesus.  They can do anything.  All because they believe that they can do anything.  And they have a goal, a dream, which they will do anything to achieve.  And through all the struggles, and desert treks, and flights on the wings of seagulls, leaving their lives and loved ones and self-possessed bosses, they finally reach their rose garden and guess what? They talk to the rose and the rose will reply.  Because that's how it is in a perfect world of a book - a character is free.  Unconstrained by laws of physics, biology, or society.  Love prevails, the dream is attained, the battle is won.

That's why, while I'm trying to make a sense of what life is offering me or people around me, and how I can survive in this grim reality, or how I can lift the spirits of the ones who are suffering just like me, I can't find time to escape into an unrealistic world of literature.  I have to deal with what's here and now.

And find nourishing soil for a seed of my own dream, and make sure it stays alive.

Desert

This was an assignment from my journaling class, to finish the following sentence, "Right now my creativity is like....". The following questions were posted by my instructor to be explored. This is what I wrote in my journal and slightly revised for the blog.


RIGHT NOW MY CREATIVITY IS LIKE A DRIED UP DESERT….

:: How do I feel about this dried up desert?
:: Where is the nearest oasis & how do I get there?
:: What would it be like for me to transform my desert into a lush tropical hideaway?
:: What living things currently exist in my desert?
:: What do I like about my desert?

"Out of the Desert" by David Kreider

Right now my creativity is like a dried up desert. The cruel sun is beating down my back with its ruthless rays of judgment. I walk, thirsty, for miles and miles of wilderness and dry empty sand, until I hope to reach the oasis of inspiration.

I feel scared that this is the only world for me - this desert - where I will be stuck forever and ever. I will walk on and on for days without finding water.

But there it is - the oasis, it’s just beyond the horizon, always just beyond the horizon. So I never can get there because its always right out of my reach.

There is a certain advantage to being in a desert: the warmth, the sun, the sheer beauty of the endless sky and vast horizon, a lonely bird flying up in the sky, the unseen life, hidden underneath my feet. Tumbleweeds, dunes, beautiful colors of sunset. The heat is unbearable, but I can always cover myself with the protective clothing, and just keep riding the camel until I reach the Bedouin tents. There I can find a tough but hospitable people, who will offer me refuge along with their sweet dates and tea. And maybe a bed. They will teach me their ancient wisdom of being free in the desert. How to listen to the wind and read the weather on the slopes of the sand dunes, how to hear the whispered songs of the tumbleweeds brought from faraway lands. I can learn how to not conquer the desert, but befriend it, understand it, and become one with it.

My desert is the vast embodiment of freedom. Its scary because it offers many choices, like an empty canvas, it waits for the first brushstroke. It’s waiting for the rider to cross it, for the bird to fly above it up in the sky, for the lizard to run across it on its nimble legs. It has life hidden in it, but still active;

it’s lying dormant and waiting for the first touch. It’s like a final stage of fetus or a chrysalis, ready to be born. But to push it to be born would be a disaster. I just have to be patient, and wait for the right moment.

My creativity is not dead, it’s just waiting for the right time to emerge. There’s life teeming inside it, thoughts churning. To push them out would result in something worthless, like unbaked bread. I have to wait for the bread to be baked in order to enjoy it. My creativity is trying to sort things out, to sift out the useful from the useless. To figure out what I want. I can’t decide yet. It’s not right to push the result. So I must wait. And wait. Not passively, I can still absorb all the wonderful things inside of me, and new things around me. But when the right moment arrives, I will receive a sign that I must act. And then, I will.

Moments of Inspiration

There are moments when the inspiration strikes me in the middle of the most inconvenient times, and the voice of God of Creativity compels me to write. So I have to drop everything, wherever I am, and obey; otherwise, the inspiration will disappear as quickly as it came.

I am in the middle of cleaning my house, specifically on the verge washing the living room, my mind is clouded and distressed after a fight with my husband, when the Voice commands me. So I drop everything and turn on the computer and write this blog entry, because if I don't, the precious chance to write will pass on, and I will be left again with self-hatred for not being able to write a single meaningful word.

The Voice commands me to write about gratitude to God of Creativity, and here I am. I am grateful that in the midst of inner turmoil and self-doubt, you have granted me the ideas to write the blog about wine, and the blog about the analysis of my cultural identity. You provided me with the titles, The Wine Girl, one night while I was falling asleep, and Un-American Moments, where else - on the toilet, which is my usual place to come up with the most brilliant ideas.

Every day, I have a fight with myself in my head, and every day, there's a nasty loud voice of fear and doubt, and every day, I have to conquer it, but most of the time, I just ignore it, and let it drone on and on, while I type my new blog post, or write in my journal, or jot down some mediocre poetic lines. I just keep going, knowing, that besides my sister, few friends, and God of Creativity, no one really cares what I have to say.

But I can't disobey the Voice. So I am writing, without any hope for any outcome at all. I just write because I have something to say, and if I don't say it, it will eat me alive from within.

A Woman's Prayer/ War Cry

A poem of two parts or two separate entities, I haven't decided. But the same topic, nevertheless.



I want to enter
the world of harmony and beauty
of the human heart.

The world
free of men and their petty
squabbles,
their envy, hatred, polluting
the sanctity
of Mother Earth's belly.

The world
where my sisters, mothers, daughters
cleanse in the same pool of tears
for millennia.

The world
where the size of love
is not equal
to the blow of a fist
a husband bestows
on his betrothed.

The world
not ruled by
the unzipped ego.
Where no one thinks of me
as a seductress, bitch or whore.

The world
where my worth
is not measured by
the size of my breasts,
the number of my offspring,
or the purity of my intact
hymen.

The world where there's
no class, no power,
no better, no worse.

The world where I can be
myself
and bask in my own
womanhood.

My strength
My weakness
My gentleness
My courage

My freedom.

******

I don't want to be
a prize to win,
a beauty to protect.

I don't want to live
for my father's pride,
or brother's virtue,
but only for myself.

I am me,
same as anyone else -
a collection of cells,
emotions,
and stardust.

If I Disappear

If I disappear
The trees will still grow
The flowers will still bloom

You will still watch the sunset
The children will still laugh

The Earth will still spin
The rain will still fall

If I disappear
The life will go on

Failure

Yes, I am a failure as a writer.

My writing is mediocre, but my expectation is inflated. I want people to sing praises to me, and I am, like most human beings, an attention seeking junkie.

But as I learn, nobody reads my blogs and nobody wants to publish my stories.

Chicken Soup For The Soul prints and sells two editions without even letting me know that my writing has been rejected. I guess I'm not one of the lucky one hundred, whose seemingly average, but heart-wrenching laments, have been selected for the publication.

No one cares about my bad poems and my funny observations of the difficulties of selecting wines for Jews. As my muse pays me a long awaited visit and inspires me to write, life shows me that it's a useless and disappointing venture.

So I talk to God and complain about his unfairness. But as usual he doesn't answer. I just go on and keep writing, hoping that at least He will read it somewhere up in Heaven.

Beware of Descriptive Algae

The simple things are also the most extraordinary, but only the wise can see them. (Paulo Coelho on Facebook)

Rereading my old writing from last year, I'm struck by the wordiness and senseless use of metaphor and simile. 

 

It's just too much.

 

It seems that as I discovered for myself the joys of using intricate words in writing, I just plunged in.  Deep.  Buried in sludge, I couldn't discern the true meaning in all that descriptive algae.  

 

In retrospect, it was a wise decision to stop writing for a while and try to get myself out of this swamp. 

 

No wonder people criticized my writing.

 

Simplicity is deceptively simple.   Now I have all the time in the world to master it.

Another bad poem (so why the heck am I sharing it?)

I carry many places inside my soul

But at the same time I feel empty

Secluded in my 3 bdrms 2 baths brick ranch

Lost in the middle of Americana

Behind white picket fences

Among generic faces

Always dreaming of

Scarlet sunset walks

Along cypress alleys

Ancient stucco walls

Aligning narrow streets

Housing echoes of time

A Really Bad Poem

They come to you
the bad poems
and assault your senses
with regurgitated
cliches

They whisper into your ear
to write them down
to breathe life into their
broken promises of greatness

And you obey

And then after sobering up
in the light of a sensible morning
you look in disgust on
what has written itself
on the shreds of your old existence

Welcome to insanity, my boy
You are an unpaid bad poet

A Fairytale

There was God of Creativity, who lived up in the sky of wonder, above the clouds of doubt and confusion.

He was a kind God and wanted everyone to be happy and do whatever made them happy.  To achieve that he gave all the people natural abilities and talents to enjoy.  When people utilized their talents, they felt exquisite pleasure and could even catch a glimpse of  God of Creativity himself, who was remarkably glorious.

However, some people failed to use their natural abilities because life around them was tough.  They toiled day and night to earn their daily bread  and were never  happy, so they became envious of those who did as God told them.

As the life on Earth became harder, more and more people fell away from God of Creativity and stopped using their natural talents.  More and more people grew dissatisfied and angry. Jealous of the others, they made fun of them.

"Look at you, painting your stupid pictures! What are you going to eat tomorrow, your oil paint?" they taunted the starving but happy artists.

Art has become a useless trifle and didn't pay a penny.  Being an artist became a joke. Artists could only be poor. Nobody cared about God of Creativity anymore.  People became more desperate and depressed.  The world was turning gray.  The few artists who still worshiped  God were considered madmen.

God of Creativity finally got fed up.

He said, "Stupid people, I gave you life and I gave you happiness.  You threw it away and now suffer!"

He got tired and decided to leave the Earth, taking the few worshipers left with him.  Where they are now, nobody knows, but the world is surely full of suffering.

Wonders of TOEFL

The following was taken from the wrong answer choices of TOEFL test (Test of English as a Foreign Language).  Now somebody please tell me what is REALLY wrong with the wording of these wonderful sentences. They sound like they belong in a Jane Austen novel. Why doesn't everyone start talking like that now? LOL

1.  Alfred Adams has not before lived without the company of his friends.

2.  The committee has met and it has formulated themselves some opinions.

3.  Having been served lunch, a discussion of the problem was made by the members of the committee.

4.  The chairman requested that with more carefulness the problem should be studied.

5.  She wanted to serve some coffee to her guests; however, she was lacking in the amount of sugar.

The Futility of Goals

Yes, I've been silent for too long.  And I know that nobody reads my blog. I am not a real blogger anyway, I don't get excited sharing my pearls of wisdom with the Internet readers, or crazed about other people's blogs.  I guess it's just not for me.  But I don't want to be completely out of the picture yet either.  So after four months of being locked away in the deep dungeon of the job torture, and not being able to be with myself, I am once again trying to reconnect with the soul inside of me.   I am once again surrounded by the sacred silence, listening to the whispers of a voice withing me. The voice of what, I don't know.  God, Holy Spirit, inner wisdom, my heart, a Messenger, the infinite creative well... ? But I can hear it once again, guiding me through constant battle of self-hatred that I wage with myself.  And this is what the voice made me write:

Don't focus on the end result.  Don't focus on the goal.  Just enjoy each step without thinking of the final outcome and you will grow day by day into what the outcome is supposed to be.

There's too much emphasis in the modern Western culture on the goal, but the process is usually neglected.  Making the process work for the sake of the process is the ultimate challenge.

Write, dance, exercise for the sheer enjoyment of the feeling in your body.  The improvement will happen on it's own as a byproduct.  The final result?  You don't even want the result to BE FINAL! It's a constant lifelong growth and continuation, necessary for your own self, not for the others, not for the public, your friend, your mother, your husband, or your boss.  YOU are the only person that is doing the process, for whom the process is beneficial.

Who gives a damn about the goal now?