I'm going to skip past all the day-to-day stuff because I want to talk about a book. I just finished LeGuin's Very Far Away From Anywhere Else, and it makes me want to cry. Not because it's sad. It's not sad, though it is very intense, and that's part of why it hit me. Mostly it's because she's so damn good a writer, and while I know I'm competent and more than competent, I don't want to be just that -- I want to be really good. I want to make people laugh and cry and be silent and want to write. And I don't know any real way to become a good writer (you can't go to school for it or serve an apprenticeship) except to write and write and pay attention to people and the world. And I'm doing that, but even when I'm not being lazy or distracted or scared or earning a living doing something that requires far less than half a brain, I have no idea whether I'll ever be as good as I want to be, even if I work as hard as I should. Which is terrifying, because of course I don't work as hard as I should...certainly not even as hard as I can, and I never have, which is why I've been an underachiever all my life except for odd flashes. So I'm shaken, and scared, but you shouldn't worry about me, because this too will pass and soon I'll be back to my normal complacent (vaguely worried in the back of my head) self, and that's perhaps the worst of it. If I could just hold on to this intensity and fear and courage, maybe I could be a writer someday.
I'll tell you tomorrow about the humdrums of today. I want to hold onto this energy as long as I can. Perhaps I can drag a story or a poem out of it.
My Friends Call Me a Fool
I'm staying with him
not because I love him (I do.)
or because he loves me (He does.)
or because we have a joint lease.
I'm staying with him
because in July of 1995
I decided I would
dare to.
That is all my current wisdom.