I most certainly had not planned to abandon this endeavor. But when I come to think of it, I often go long, dusty stretches of time without the scratch of a pen to paper ((or keystroke to a blank page, per se)), no matter how many promises I make to myself.
When do you turn to writing–or reading, or drawing, or crosswords, or CrossFit, or Sodoku, a.k.a Who Decided Math is Fun? When do you go to your outlet?
There are several instances when I go to mine. Sometimes, it’s during the times where I feel so lit by creativity that everything around me gets brighter and the words crowd for a space at the front of my brain. Sometimes, a long stretch of writing follows a long stretch of tears.
There have been a great number of those lately.
I was going to write about the other type of brain activity I’ve been experiencing over the last few weeks. There are things fighting for a space in front, sure, but they are words of derision, disappointment, despair, deceit, and distortion. There have been a lot of tears.
I was going to write about the sense of loss I feel about the passing of Chester Bennington, a man who I had watched perform multiple times, who was one of the few artists who I felt like took some of those derisive and distorted words from my own head and made them into something real. I don’t want to say “beautiful.” While Linkin Park had some beautiful songs ((“The Little Things Give You Away” and “My Dsmbr” come to mind)), much of their music was very real to me – real words, tangible feelings, unapologetic darkness that I could shout along with in my car or appreciate as it pumped through my headphones. It was crafted well, and still resonated like my own heartbeat.
I was very much looking forward to their concert with Blink 182 this Friday.
I have cried a mass of tears, and it has left me silent, enraged, unfulfilled, incredulous. So instead of writing about those kinds of tears, I’m going to share something about a different type of tears altogether.
Copyrighted 2017
Literary Jacks 