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...