I know I have a long way to go as a writer, but it’s nice to go back and appreciate how far I’ve come. This is an excerpt from The Vulning Pelican, an autobiographical novella and my first serious attempt at writing in July 2009. I’ll continue to post excerpts each week. Be sure to subscribe to this blog if you’d like a somewhat poorly written intimate account of how I ended up as a writer in Panama.
I sat at my desk stiff with trepidation. The computer screen glowed in annoying passivity. Four small green parakeets screeched and babbled in their dirty cages on the front porch as my brain struggled to reanimate. This was my first attempt at writing since I was a teenager.
Writing had been a compulsion for many of my younger years. I had stacks of notebooks full of words written to no one. I was not one to call up a girlfriend to spill out my guts or go to a shrink for a bottle of pills. Writing was my therapy. It was like taking out the cerebral garbage, and the longer I went without it the more neurotic I became.
Once, I was a laid-back open-minded idealist. I was a visionary, a dreamer, but with each year I that descended into womanhood a nagging bitterness unfurled inside me.
Like most of my fellow so-called generation-Xers, I was lost in a world disenchanted. I put up a noble fight against big bad Conformity. I did my fair share of reckless behavior- too much drinking and drugs, going out with “bad boys” and not much of anything else. Eventually and inevitably I was forced to grow up and surrendered to the mediocre job, the car payment, and the weekly struggle to make it to Friday.
I felt I had lost the battle. I had sold-out for the safety and security of the working class American life instead of risking it all to do something I loved. My self-disgust was manifested in an unconscious punishment. I cornered my soul and starved my passions.
Now having a bit of a mid-thirties crisis, I said to myself, “What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?”
I noticed I was more uptight, more moody, more irritable, and more fearful of people. I became dispassionate about everything and instead tranquilized myself by swallowing copious amounts of red wine and obsessing over household cleanliness. I released my energies by perfecting yoga asanas and running like a caged hamster on my elliptical machine.
It was not that I did not enjoy life. In fact, the beauty of the world could bring me instantly to tears whenever it chose to penetrate my addled heart, but these glimpses were only enough to drive me mad. I knew it was all right there in front of me, the Secret of Life. Sometimes I could almost piece it together, but it eluded me like a song on the tip of my tongue.
I had found love of my life and was living happily ever after in paradise. I was no longer a slave to a paycheck. Why was I so discontent?
The only thing that kept me grounded was my immense love for those few people close to me. I knew how to appreciate and adore my family. But it had been my writing, my therapists Dr. Paper and Mr. Pen that were the only way I could make sense of myself. I had to go back. The cerebral garbage had been piling up, putrefying, and emitting noxious odors. To put it plainly, my psyche was fast becoming a bona fide shitstorm.
to be continued…
*Cringes* Some of it is not too bad, and some of it is laugh out loud horrible. Dr. Paper and Mr. Pen. Yes, I actually wrote that. Hey, don’t judge. It was over 6 years ago.
Writing as therapy. I know exactly what you mean. I started writing as soon as I came back from Vietnam. It kept me sane and probably saved my life.
That is awesome, Guy. Have you published anything about the war?
There are a few stories on my blog (Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette), but the majority of the stories, about a Vietnam War veteran, are in my book that I published around the time I got my MFA from the University of Pittsburgh in 2006. The book was my thesis. The book is available in Kindle, eBook and paperback. My book, Compressionism: The Pittsburgh Stories, is available from my blog.
Engrossing writing as always! 😉
And I like that “Dr. Paper and Mr. Pen”. So true! In my case Dr. Notes App and Mr. Pointer Finger. 😉
I know, paper and pen is so outdated! Lol. It just sounds more romantic. The only place I write with a pen in my journal, the old-fashioned way. All other writing is typed or tapped. Now my handwriting is turning into a doctor’s scrawl. What about yours?
Yes, same here. I only use a pen to jot down random notes on scrap paper at work. And by its very nature of rushing, is quite sloppy. I only make an effort to write neatly on the rare occasions I’m writing inside a special greeting card, and then it feels so strange plus it takes forever! 😛
So glad you are writing and not wasting your talent.
You write beautifully. You have a gift.
When purpose keeps knocking and we don’t answer, it sneaks in the window and mugs us, rendering us miserable until we start to take action. Lots of angst 6 years ago, but now, you have a book out!!!! Woo-hoo! I wish you an amazingly productive 2016, full of inspiration and fulfilled purpose, love and peace within. Cheers! With red wine, in copious amounts.
Good start for this blog – I like the “bad boys” reference in the past.