My first post, and it’s about nothingness. Figures.
How does one write experientially when one feels hollow of insight or history? I know so many people who can spin enthralling tales from the simplest events in their lives, and turn the more profound moments into grand tableaux of what it means to be human. They have rich memories and details to draw from their brains like magician’s scarves, in a resplendent rainbow of hues. I feel like an empty vessel next to them.
There is something lacking in me, that thing which captures our experiences and translates them into tales and creates connections with our fellows. I didn’t grow up in a family of storytellers (in fact I do not recall that my mother ever spoke of her own growing up or of any adventures in life that shaped her), and I have as a result had that potential in me atrophy to the extent that I often cannot even stir many memories of my own life, let alone anyone else’s, and those that do exist rattle around like a BB in a child’s puzzle I am unable to translate them into a language that others might understand. It is a very isolating way to be. I long for that easy fluency of those with a gift for rendering their biographies into a product that interests and engages others.
Perhaps some of it is perspective. I don’t think there’s anything particularly exciting or glamorous about my life and thus what slim volume I am does not bear sharing in order to spare myself the humiliation of the inevitable lack of interest. Anything I could say has already been said, and far more eloquently. I don’t mind being a bit dull but I’d rather not be one tiny ripple in the wake of a ship that has sailed.
I wish somehow the stories could be brought out of me, that I had that gift of weaving them into analogies and picaresque dioramas of life. But I don’t. Thus, I contribute to a blog*
*The main point of posting this, of course, is that I’m hoping to soon have to eat my words via jinxian power. The subjects to write about should roll in to my brain thick and fast now, bwaaaahaaaahaa… take THAT, writer’s block! HULK SMASH!
