Struck

Sometimes
I'm struck
by a memory--
a desire
to use the tiny, metal, digital
extension of "me"
to call out to "you."

I want to ask
"if you could eradicate
a book from the world,
what book would you
un-write?
Why?"

The sudden
shock
of pain
strikes
my chest
at the thought of you--

the impulse
to reach
remains.

It has been hard to kill.
It is hard to keep quite.

Even now,
after so much
progress
 the impulse
to touch
to "reach" you
takes my breath away

the way
the bitter cold
of winter mornings
robs my lungs
and throat of bliss
and leaves them
 too conscience
of their own existence--

Struck by nothing
except reality.

Those. Damn. Dots.

Or, thoughts on the emotional roller coaster that is the act of watching the "typing" ellipsis dots in a text message exchange...

1.) F#$!.

2.) If anyone ever has to scratch his or her head in wonder as to why "so many young people are neurotic today" I will clarify at least a portion of that confusion by illuminating the following: like it or not, much of modern communication now takes place via text message. There are no traditional visual or physical cues or signals therein to indicate tone, physical state (tired, depressed, drunk, what have you), or to show even that the recipient has "heard" what you said and is either formulating a reply or ignoring you completely...no signal, that is, save three little grey dots that sort of pulse at you, indicating that someone has at least begun typing, allowing you the slimmest of flickers of information: someone has pressed a finger to at least one key. Me, I have been known to watch the empty text message screen on which my blue or green text now sits, waiting and hoping (often in vain) for those damn dots to appear, so rapt is my attention to this "conversation" I want to be having that is oh so very much, for the moments and longer-than-mere-moments between messages, my sole and soul-consuming focus, while all the while signals are being sent to satellites in space...just so two humans can have a simple conversation.

*3.) F#$!. 

*This last, well-chosen, oft repeated sentiment is frequently directed not at the dots themselves, nor, indeed, even at the person or persons with whom I am desperately trying to communicate. No, no. The third (and fourth. and fifth. and...so on) thought in this mental procession is, 98% of the time, directed at MY OWN DAMN SELF for a plethora of reasons, but usually boiling down to this simple truth: that which I initially wanted to say, and indeed might have said hastily and thoughtlessly in a spoken conversation has now been WRITTEN OUT IN WORDS. Words which I myself can now read back. In the voice of the person I just sent them to. Thus allowing me to imagine a thousand new tones, contexts, and assumptions that could be made based on those words that I did not, in fact, intend. This results in me having yet another minor heart attack due to fear at the sight of the previously longed-for dots, convinced as I now am that the person I am talking to has come to the correct and inevitable conclusion that I am, in fact, a horrible person and not at all witty or funny, not worth speaking to any longer, and, what is more, worthy of an almighty lettered thrashing, which he or she will dispense to dole out in all haste, hence the sudden appearance of what has now become the most frightening series of symbols in modern times: those damn, damn dots.     

Reading Raymond Carver

It has been a long time.
Grad school will do that.
Grad school and pleasure and pain.

It is strange to me that when I am at my happiest the last thing I think to do is "write" in the way that I think about "writing" as an outlet or platform for expressing the joy and bliss that I feel, and yet, when I am at my saddest, the last thing I think to do is "write" in the way that I think about "writing" as a salve or solution to sooth my lost and lonesome soul...

At this moment, though, I am no longer in grad school (having graduated. hurray....?), and I am feeling neither excessive pleasure nor excessive pain. Still, I find myself here, writing in a space that I haven't visited in quite a while.

I'm here because I want to share the thoughts in my head with a friend.
I want to say "I just had my first encounter with Raymond Carver and it reminds me of Hemingway and O'Connor and I want to know what you think and I want to talk to you about it."

I want to say other things, too. The ineffable, inexpressible things that the limits of language cannot transcend and will not permit me to express.

It has been a long time.
But maybe not long enough.
I thought, once, that I knew the measure of "enough."
I am not sure anymore.

So I will keep reading.
And hoping.
Ever in search of "enough."
Of answers.
Of that friendly voice to share book love with.

I have so much of it to give.



...It is a weird and sad thought that, as children, often the last thing we want to do is share what we have with others, yet as we grown, we are desperate to share, to give, and to belong...