Being a child
P.S. I am doing exactly what this post is about. Old habits die hard.
I’m at M’s. We spent the evening together; Mexican food and a shared margarita, giggling about the waitress who ignored us, drinking Heinekens poured into cups with ice, running two blocks to the ice cream shop. We watched Alvin and the Chimpunks (the squeakquel) and then tuned in to Sabrina Carpenter’s Coachella performance. But now it’s late and she has to work in the morning, so I open the Lyft app, order a ride, and we hug and squeal our goodbyes. I do the Miss Thailand dance.
I get in this car, which belongs to Jean, and we exchange pleasantries: How are you, happy Friday, do you have weekend plans. He says a lot of people in the city work during the weekend, so he hopes I don’t have to. I tell him thankfully i don’t, but I’m a journalist, so I have before. And then we’re really off to the races.
Jean says he’s a “news junkie.” He listens to KQED. He loves NPR. And we talk about the business, the conglomerates, the 24/7 cycle, but then he asks me if I like writing. I tell him, Of course I do. He says it’s painful for him. He never really knows what he’s thinking until he writes it, and when he does write it, it needs to succinctly and clearly represent his thoughts. Mentally draining. It is the talk of a perfectionist!
I feel the same way, but that’s what I like about writing. I like working out my thoughts on paper, or writing about specific moments, or reworking a sentence, or never knowing what’s going to come out of my sessions of curling over my laptop or notebook. He says he envies this.
He brings up Orwell, and specifically an essay he wrote about writing. Why I Write. Not the Didion one tho… but I still pull it up on my phone because I love this sort of shit. I promise myself to read the essay once I’m home.
Jean, the NYC transplant, Jean the man who says he misses John’s of Bleecker Street, who moved to the West Coast when he was in his 30s and still lives here even though S.F. is second-best … drops me off. Says he enjoyed talking to me. I hope he has a good morning because it is morning at this point.
I get inside, I pee, I strip, I drink water a number of times, and I have many epiphanies.
No jk but then I lay down and open the Orwell essay on my phone.
It starts off with him recounting his entry into writing; how he always knew he was destined to be a writer, how he fell in love with words, yada yada, I love shit like this tho cause it’s so mystical and mythological. Same With Didion. How these authors know, in their loins, that they’re destined to write, I do not know, but their assertions that they ignore it, or they hate themselves for it, or whatever, it’s so interesting.
Anyways, he begins describing how writing/storytelling infiltrated his life. How even the simple act of opening a door became a narrative. How the placement of objects or the sun shining through windowpanes or the cat in the alley became a part of a scene in his life. a stream of mental narration. And I am very familiar with this … (could u tell):
Although I had to search, and did search, for the right words, I seemed to be making this descriptive effort almost against my will, under a kind of compulsion from outside. The ‘story’ must, I suppose, have reflected the styles of the various writers I admired at different ages, but so far as I remember it always had the same meticulous descriptive quality.
Why I Write by George Orwell
So I’m thinking, ok Orwell…I also do this. The thought process is sort of nonsensical and automatic. Maybe it’s a reflex. But I noticed what he’s describing in myself.
After explaining his history, he quickly delves into the particular motivations one has for writing. For him, there are four primary motivators: Sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose. I’m linking the essay cos I don’t want to explain them, but he asserts that writing is always trying to convey something. and of course I was reflecting while reading.
I, for some time, have used writing (specifically this blog) as a way to express myself, to chronicle my days, to share the personal. And I do enjoy doing this. I like remembering the details of a specific interaction; what was said, what was done, where it was done. It’s also an excuse to write.
But I quickly realized how often I use this blog as a diary. And i already write in my physical diary. So I thought: why do I publish my thoughts, feelings, experiences? What is the value of typing these for others?
on this blog, I tend to write with a combination of three motivators: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm and historical impulse. i want to be seen as intelligent. and i also want to describe and capture experiences. and i also enjoy storytelling and evoking emotions. But i never intentionally write with these ideas in mind. I just end up writing what feels right. But I’d like to be more thoughtful. time and place.
writing with intention helps strengthen writing. when there are no guardrails, anything is possible and that is a double-edged sword. so I am making a concerted effort to post when I have something to say. thanks to Jean’s reading recommendation.
this is another experiment of mine. But bsed on my track record, I may abandon it in a few months. In this moment though, I’d really like to see how writing from an inspired and intentional place will affect the quality of the prose. for now, I’m ending on another flat note. but I have positive expectations!
~SGR