and besides

Now isn’t that the way it is? Commit to write and the brain freezes.

Ah. Writing about what matters. Came across that twice this week. In the editor’s (wonderful) commentary between pieces in The Next American Essay, he remarks that the best essays are those in which he senses the author is writing about something that matters to him or her. And lin another piece in Writers Ask, a writer says that the kinds of things he really likes to read are the ones that give him a sense that the author has wrestled with the issues in them, that they matter. 

So being a writer by habit if not by publication, I immediately asked myself, Am I writing about what matters to me? Then: What matters to me?

Which brings me to the difficult place, where the answers to those questions are No and I don’t know. Anymore.

And besides . . .  when I become passionate about things, it reads as strident and overdone. It does not rally the troops, it repels them

So I seem to have abandoned passion. Except when I have drunk or smoked or remembered too much and then I rage and sometimes weep

And besides . . .  there are so many things to be done. Dishes. Laundry. Filing. Taxes. Medical appointments to be made and kept.

acupuncture  chiropractic  physical therapy  dentist  occasional surgeon  primary  serious eye doctor

and there are exercises, practices

tuning forks   reiki   leg lifts   crunches   ankle alphabets   bicep curls       

and the job search   do they like me   will he hire me again    does that one make more per hour than I do and if so why   I am good at this and it’s not terribly important so why won’t they just say well done here’s money 

And besides . . .  I don’t care passionately anymore

though I do get angry at

politicians   church men   corporate ceos   women who best me   men who don’t acknowledge me   bosses who regard me less worthily than I regard myself   my legs for failing me   my choices that took me in the wrong direction   myself myself MYSELF for not seeing   not acting   not daring   not completing   

what matters . . .  

What matters? ? ?    

And besides . . . we grow old and die anyway

I think sometimes that everything is filler, except for certain moments when we have to choose, and those matter,  but not the rest, which is most of it