Words are not always so easy for me to come by. My thoughts race around and bump into each other and I often don't have the capability to gather them neatly into sentences and paragraphs with any kind of discernible message. I want to write something beautiful, like my favorite passage from Mark Helprin which I've written about here before:
"The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is."
or something honest, like this from Anne Morrow Lindbergh:
"Don't wish me happiness
I don't expect to be happy all the time...
It's gotton beyond that somehow.
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all"
or something funny, like this from my beloved Oscar Wilde:
"I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."
or something profound, like this from Kurt Vonnegut:
"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."
I want to write something that does justice to how much his brief life has impacted my own.
Instead my words fumble and tumble. My sentences: disjointed. My syntax: sucky. My hyperboles: cliched. My message: repetitive. My use of semicolons and colons: probably incorrect.
There is so much I want to write about. So much I want to say about being lonely and about being bereaved and feeling unlucky but also about being in love and living life as best as I can. But, especially lately, I can't find the way to say those things and make them make sense to anyone but me.
So I stay quiet because what I want is poetry but what I get is a textbook.
If only I could capture the thoughts and emotions that are bubbling up. Capture them and turn their nebulousness into something more tangible. That would be good. That would be good.
"The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is."
or something honest, like this from Anne Morrow Lindbergh:
"Don't wish me happiness
I don't expect to be happy all the time...
It's gotton beyond that somehow.
Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor.
I will need them all"
or something funny, like this from my beloved Oscar Wilde:
"I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."
or something profound, like this from Kurt Vonnegut:
"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."
I want to write something that does justice to how much his brief life has impacted my own.
Instead my words fumble and tumble. My sentences: disjointed. My syntax: sucky. My hyperboles: cliched. My message: repetitive. My use of semicolons and colons: probably incorrect.
There is so much I want to write about. So much I want to say about being lonely and about being bereaved and feeling unlucky but also about being in love and living life as best as I can. But, especially lately, I can't find the way to say those things and make them make sense to anyone but me.
So I stay quiet because what I want is poetry but what I get is a textbook.
If only I could capture the thoughts and emotions that are bubbling up. Capture them and turn their nebulousness into something more tangible. That would be good. That would be good.
You can do more than you imagine with your words mamma.. my advice is to write.. write as much as you can because even when you think the words won't form properly or the sentences seem incomplete (emotionally speaking) there is a great deal of power in words. Sometimes getting them out onto paper (or pad) is just the beginning....
ReplyDeleteI like all the quotations you have given.
ReplyDeleteI also often feel that nothing I write can really describe the impact of that short, little life upon my own. I know my own writing is repetitive and often downright suck-y! I also have severe doubts about my own use of punctuation. But I still want to write from time to time?
Perhaps it is intrinsic to some things, or to some states of mind, to be . . impossible to capture in words? Nebulous? See YOU picked exactly the right word there. Anyhow, I always want to read what you have written, I don't see fumbling or stumbling or possible incorrect use of semicolons (as if I would even know!), it all makes sense to me and I think I can catch glimpses of that precious, brief life in your words.
You write beautifully.
ReplyDeleteBut I know what you mean, and how you feel. sometimes you just want to carve your heart out and hang it around your neck. ((hugs))
I love that first quote. Makes me think on hopeful things. Which I need a hefty dose of right now, so thank you. xx
ReplyDelete