How many times can I do this?

Abandon this site, forget it even exists, come back to it, think “gosh, I should really write something,” write a few sentences, hate it, hate myself, abandon it, abandon any hope of writing, abandon all hope, dissociate, hate myself for THAT, at some point feel the tickle in the back of the brain that signifies an idea wanting to be written, rinse, repeat.

I’ve even written, and abandoned, THIS VERY POST more than once over the years. Hell, I may have actually posted this post before, but if I did it’s far away enough in memory that it might as well have been written by somebody else. A different guy, hating himself, feeling something like inspiration again, feeling guilt over neglecting his practice for so long, vowing to come back to it, or at least not to forget about it for a while, only to forget about it again.

It’s happened enough that I’ve thought more than once about discontinuing the site. Feels like a monument to another life, a guy I can’t be anymore. I think back to the early days of this place, about a guy who was somehow teaching full time, and writing something like 2000 words every day — 1000 words or so in a novel and just about that much again on this site about any damned old thing. Good or not, insightful or not, tortured and faux-poetic as it may have been, it came out.

And every re-attempt to get back to that, or something like it, has only made me feel bad. I feel like I’m living in that guy’s shadow. I was feeling it then, I knew what I was doing, or even if I didn’t know what I was doing, I could fake it.

I read a book recently. (I know, I know. Foolish to think I’m getting my life — my writing life or any other kind of life — back on track just from reading a book.) (Also, second sidebar — I guess I haven’t lost THAT particular peccadillo — I didn’t technically READ it so much as I LISTENED to it over a couple of my regular 3-hour sojourns to visit with my wife and daughter in this crazy, de-tuned and de-synced year I’m living. But that counts, and I think my experience with the book may have been better for it. More on this in a moment.) The book was “Big Magic,” by Elizabeth Gilbert. She, the author of “Eat, Pray, Love.” (I know, ok? I KNOW.) In it, Gilbert talks a lot about the artistic life — yes, often the writer’s life, but the artistic life in all its forms: dancers and figure skaters and painters and screenwriters and travelers and teachers and creators of all stripes — and advocates a frankly wholesome view on the act of making art. And it’s like…

Ok, so I don’t have the greatest memory, yeah? Put that down to the long years drinking or, y’know, experiments with other things, or (god it hurts to say it but I can’t pretend otherwise) old age, but also bear in mind the fact that I have never in my life been particularly good at remembering things that are actually important (yet my head remains rife with useless movie quotes, fantasy novel trivia, and knowledge of my favorite old video games). So a thing I’ve started doing in the last couple years is taking notes. Digitally. I use Obsidian for this, and I might write about it sometime, but the point is, when I come across something I think might be important, and when I, y’know, REMEMBER TO DO SO, I make a note so I can find the important information again. I particularly take notes on books, because 1) I love reading, 2) I never remember what I read except in broad strokes, and 3) reading is time-consuming, so I would rather not spend my time re-reading books over and over just because I vaguely remembered they were good. So: when I read a book, I do it with pen, highlighter, or dog-eared-pages in hand, and when I get to the end, I note my thoughts on the book, pull out my favorite quotes, and catalog it. There’s a satisfaction to this process that’s hard to quantify, but needless to say, this method is best with a book I can mark up. Audiobooks, I can’t highlight or underline a passage. I can bookmark a moment, if I can be bothered to futz with the phone at the moment, which usually I can’t, because I was listening to the audiobook in the first place so that I could be focusing my hands on DRIVING or washing dishes or swing while I’m on a run or whatever else.

Ok, that was a long way to walk to tell you that Big Magic was a book that, had I been properly reading it, would have gotten a hell of a lot of markups and dog-eared pages, but because I listened to it, I had to sort of let it wash over me. Like lying on the beach as the tide comes in. Little by little, broken up by stretches where I would space out or get distracted, Gilbert’s observations just sort of lapped at my edges in her calm, reassuring tone, and after about six hours of driving, I realized something weird.

I wasn’t hating myself about the abandonment of my art.

This was a wholly unique feeling. I’d gotten so used to the low-simmering disappointment with myself over drifting away from this craft that to not feel it was a little like the first time I shaved my head and stepped outside on a windy day. What a refreshing absence.

Suffice to say, much of the book resonated with me, and maybe I can find more to say about it sometime. For now it’s enough to say that I wanted to return to the site here, not out of a sense that I *had* to, or that I needed to try to *recapture* what it once was, or to do so with any sort of goal in mind at all. I could’ve started a new one, but I figure, for better or worse, that this, too — even this sporadic period of barely anything over the past several years — is a part of the journey that this website is all about. And maybe I’ll turn it into a regular practice, and maybe I won’t. Tonight, at least, it feels nice to let my fingers dance on the keys, to spray these words onto the void of the blank page, to not worry about WHAT IT MEANS or whether it’s THE START OF SOMETHING NEW or whether it MEASURES UP TO WHAT I USED TO DO. Comparison is the thief of joy, etc, etc.

Tonight, at least, it feels good to open the spigot on my brain and let the thoughts drip out.

Tonight, at least, I’m here.

But…

There’s something else, too.

In “Big Magic,” one of the things that clicked with me was when Gilbert said you should treat your art like a new relationship. You spend your time thinking about it. You keep it secret from people, because you’re not sure about it yet. You sneak away to send it a quick message — to get a few more words down.

I may have (perhaps foolishly) started on a new project. I’ve written two and a half scenes so far, and y’know, it’s fun. I don’t know if it works yet, or if I’ll like it even if it grows up into a full-fledged thing, but I can fall off that bridge when I get to it.

But that’s not the thing. The thing is: I told my wife about it. Sheepishly. Ashamedly. Too early, to be sure. The concept is barely formed, the clay still damp and lumpy. “It’s probably dumb,” I think I said. “I dunno if I can do it,” I KNOW I said. “But I’m gonna try it.”

“Really?” She said, with something like a smile.

“Yeah, but who knows if I’ll finish it.”

She thought for a second. “I like it when you write.”

At least, I think that’s what she might have said. As I mentioned above, I don’t remember things so well. (My hearing isn’t great either, while we’re on the subject.) It’s possible she said “I like you when you write.” Or maybe it was just “I like when you write.”

Thing is: I also like when I write.

I forget that too often and too easily. If nothing else, I’m going to try to remember THAT.