I have writer’s block. Or rather, I don’t have anything to write about. Or I haven’t had the time to write. Or I haven’t made the time to write. Or I've spent all my time reading instead of writing. Or I don’t know how to write what I need to write.
But here I am with some time to spare. So today, some words and references about writing. ( I can't recommend all these links below enough. Each so moving and so meaningful; each a different example of the power of words.)
I don't know what to write because each time I write my way to a conclusion, the conclusion shifts. I have writer’s block because I don’t know how to write without concluding. And I have no conclusions today.
The easiest of these recent reflections have poured out of me in one whole piece, their conclusions complete upon arrival. The hardest of these recent reflections have been belabored and slow, their conclusion elusive until written down. But for all of them, as soon as I write it and put it out there, it no longer remains true. As soon as it’s released out of my head and onto the page, I change my mind.
In late May, I wrote out some thoughts about protesting during a pandemic. I needed to write about the tension to make sense of it for myself. Right after I’d written myself into a place of certainty about staying home instead of joining the crowds downtown, my brother walked in and said he was going to join the protest. “That’s selfish,” I’d responded. That’s what I’d just written, what my own words had just convinced me of! But off he went, selflessly, safely, and as soon as he was gone, I started changing my mind. I drafted a few words about it as I reconsidered. Then, I’d written:
“A follow up to last week: because I’m still thinking about it, and so are you. Last week, I said I was wary of social media activism, and conflicted about protesting. I've changed my mind. I started changing my mind almost as soon as I hit send. I’ve changed my mind about the pit fall of virtue signaling and social media activism because my social media feed has changed. I’ve carved out space there for me to have the kind of conversation I find useful.
I changed my mind about the protests, too. I realize I’d overestimated the risk of COVID-19 and under-valued the need of joining the protests taking place across the city, across the country. I went to join the protest at Mission High with friends, and I was moved and motivated by the size of the crowd. Everyone made their own risk calculation, and the risk of complacency was higher than that of contamination.”
That is still an unfinished, unedited thought. I drafted that but never finished it, because it’s so much harder to write about being uncertain than it is to write to arrive at certainty. As protests pick up again after Jacob Blake was repeatedly shot by police in Kenosha, I am reconsidering and re-evaluating these choices, these conclusions. But I have no certainty to share today.
And then more recently, in August, I wrote about this weird summer of ours and how hard it had been to get over missing France. I sent that out on a Saturday, and the very next day, I had the most summery sunny Sunday. I drove out to Sacramento with my friends Eleanor and Lauren, I spent the day in the pool, I ate delicious summer fruit, I read in the sun, and I didn’t once think of Dordogne. It was my first anxiety and regret free day in a while. It was so lovely to share a slice of my childhood with friends, just as lovely as it had been to share a slice of France the summer before. Alta Drive had begun to fill the place Grand Prouillac usually occupied. In commenting on how funny it was to be having an experience at odds with what I'd written the day before, I shared on Instagram: “This summer is strange and ironic and confusing like that!” And that’s true, that’s part of it. But I think it’s more that writing is strange and ironic and confusing like that. Writing down my regrets and hang-ups released them, and then they weren’t in my head getting in my way anymore, no longer preventing me from enjoying the summer in front of me.
That sunny summery Sunday in Sacramento is the last time I’ve been to my grandma’s. It’s the last time I will have been at Baca’s as Baca’s, as I always knew it. Now, the house is emptied of what was left, the green walls are painted blue, and there are new plants out front. Now, instead of it being my grandma’s old house, it’s a house for sale, open to new buyers. I haven’t been back because I don’t know how to feel about it. I haven’t written about it because I don’t know how to feel about it. Or rather, I’m afraid to confront how I feel about it by putting it into words and reach a conclusion I dread. So I’m not going to do it now. My grandma’s house is becoming no longer my grandma’s house. That’s all I know for sure, I have no certainty to share today.
I didn’t know where this would lead when I began writing, but here we are - grasping at words to say what I need to say, to write what I need to write. No clear conclusion in sight.
What I’ve learned:
From Kiese’ Makeba Laymon’s Mississippi: A Poem, in Days, in The Great Fire issue of Vanity Fair : That poetry can look like diary entries. That processing political events can look like poetry.
From Jason Reynolds’ For Every One for 826 Digital : That poetry can look like pacing around an empty room. That uncertainty can look like poetry.
What I’m learning, or trying to learn:
From Jia Talentino in conversation with Ezra Klein: That writing itself wants to lead us to conclusions, writing without concluding is difficult and hard work.
From Zadie Smith’s Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction : That an essay can delight, surprise, confuse, and enlighten all at the last time.
From the opening essay in Zadie Smith’s Intimations, “Peonies” : That an essay doesn’t need to have a single subject, or a single point, or a single conclusion.
What I want to learn next:
Whatever my wandering writing leads me to next.
I feel this. I also often change my mind after writing something. And then I realize that I wouldn’t have gotten to that different idea if I hadn’t first put down the words for the initial idea. There’s also an important difference in the writing process when I write something only I will read vs writing something I plan to share with others. The former is much more freeing and I like it more because it tends to be the most honest. I’ve been going into writing as though I’m not going to share it with anyone, so that I can be as honest as possible with myself. Then sometimes I end up sharing it. I like what you said about conclusions and not having any. It also makes me think about what details to include and what to leave to the reader’s imagination. Though I also found this quote from Octavia Butler: “It’s so easy as a young writer to think you’ve been very clear when in fact you haven’t.” Anyway, I enjoy thinking about writing and how integral it is to our growth as individuals and also as community who read each other’s words. Thank you for sharing!