Pardon the long silence.
The year of second grade, first crushes, and Hooked on Phonics, my parents gave me a small journal for my birthday. I can vividly remember that tiny book, its cover’s depiction of a white unicorn galloping through an enchanted forest, an image that was set against a background of soft teal. However delighted I, a girl enthralled with horses and fairytales, was by the journal’s cover, it was not this feature which compelled me to carry the gift with me to school that January 29, to pass it around to all of my friends, flaunting my new found freedom. You see, this particular journal, handpicked for me, was graced with a lock and one key. This meant that I suddenly had the liberty of expressing my deepest secrets without fear of ridicule, shame, or an invasion of my privacy. That January 29, when recess came, I sat down on an unused staircase in my school’s gym, surrounded by my closest friends and began to write. What I wrote I cannot remember, likely something about the boy I was crushing on (a truth that, even at that age, I could not bring myself to admit to my peers), but I can remember that those girls faithfully stood guard, chasing away any boy who ventured within ten feet of our enclave.
I have thought of that day often and wondered what else I received for my birthday that year. My mother is a particularly good gift giver, so I assume that, for any other child, the other presents I received would have taken complete precedence over that journal. Yet, of all of the gifts I received on all of my birthdays, I remember that journal and that day.
Since then, I have always had a journal in my possession. In my closet, I have a box of them, beginning with those I wrote during my later high school years and continuing through last year’s model. Despite this, I do not pretend to be a faithful to those bound stacks of pureed tree. Most of my journals are half-empty, and the ink-stained pages demonstrate the erratic nature of my writing. An entry from March is followed by a silence of six months when, in September I begin writing faithfully, almost obsessively, only to stop, one day, mid-sentence, distracted by something or someone.
And it is then, when I open to the first empty page after another long silence, that my eyes fall on the unfinished thought. At this point (and this has happened more than once) I find that I am completely overwhelmed. By what? Perhaps by the partial thought lingering on the page, still staring over the edge of the cliff from which its completion has fallen, forever lost, irretrievable. Perhaps by the implications of an unfinished sentence, an indication of the chaos and ceaselessness of life to which I have submitted, having bid an apathetic farewell to life-giving, joy-imparting activities and practices. Perhaps. Certainly, I am overwhelmed by my failure.
Earlier this summer, I went for a morning run. My sweet Jordan made a playlist for me, one filled with songs to get my blood pumping and my feet moving. This came as a great relief, as I had been listening to the same Roots song again and again and again during my jogs. On this morning, the first with my new playlist, the ipod gave out five minutes into my run. With the exception of the mile runs we were all forced to do in high school, I’m not sure I had ever run without music to drive me along. Knowing that if I went back to the house to get our other ipod, I would find an excuse to sit down, resulting in a perfectly sound explanation of why it would be perfectly acceptable to rest today and “go tomorrow,” I decided to keep going. Sans musical goading.
I am not a runner. I often find myself gawking at those people who are naturally gifted in this area, astounded by their effortless gazelle-like motions. Still, I enjoy running. (I should point out that for me to not only enjoy but actually engage in an activity which does not come easily is a rather significant feat for me.) Yet, on this morning, I do not have the music’s beats to guide me into a day dream, my imagination shaping a vision of a mythical me, the Lindsey with the astoundingly fit body, the shining hair flowing behind her, the inability to sweat…the one floating along the pavement, her feet barely touching its surface. No, this morning it was all about reality. The reality of sound, specifically the sound of my feet on the pavement. When I run (ok, JOG), it sounds as though a stubborn four year old is being dragged through the grocery store, away from the toys, by her impatient mother. A loud stomp followed by a dispirited shuffle, followed again by a stomp and another shuffle, the child clearly unable to resist the adult’s power, but giving it everything she has anyway.
This was not the most encouraging sound to hear at 6:15 in the morning. Yet, as I pressed on, I began to realize something which, in all honesty, has yet to take root. I am almost always driven by the need for predetermined results. When I run, I don’t run because I (actually) enjoy it, I run so that I can be thinner, healthier, more accomplished. With those ends in mind, I force myself to run for a certain amount of time or distance, at a certain speed, et cetera. I do this, rather than simply running to run, running because I need the release.
I am always afraid of failure. Always. At some point, for some unknown reason (although I have my theories), I became a perfectionist of sorts. My desire to succeed (read impress/receive affirmation from other people) began to infiltrate my schoolwork, my hobbies, my musical tastes, my clothing choices, my food choices, every public part of my life. Somehow, it even began to take over my private life. Indeed, my desire to please the humanity around me and my fear of failing to do so seeped into my journals.
Would you like an example of how neurotic I can be? I have actually considered, with some frequency, the possibility of someone reading my journals after I die. It is actually important to me that that person or those people find something of interest and depth there, that my words have some lasting significance. That I have some lasting significance.
I close the journal containing the unfinished sentence and begin a new one, determined this time to write words weighed down, pinned against the page, with deep and profound meaning. Yet, again I am interrupted or again I do not have the focus or drive to finish my thought, to write anything but a scrawled plea for help, for peace, for assurance. If someone does read my journals after I have ceased to breath, this is what he or she will find and, really, this is who I am. Erratic and desperate, a paradox of fullness and emptiness, wordiness and silence.
With all of this in mind, I write now. I write simply to write, acting on a whim, a need to say something, valuable or not. I write because it is one of my most treasured practices, one so important that I can remember the first journal given to me, as well as those given to me as gifts later in my life. I write because regardless of whether it looks or sounds like I am shuffling along, it makes me feel as though I am gliding effortlessly through the long miles of life.
