Drawing inspiration from Bestie Meg over at http://adarknessuponmethatsfloodedinlight.blogspot.com/, I'm going to try to post something once a day. It won't always be much - in fact, it's almost guaranteed not to be for some time, with everything I have going on - but something is better than nothing, and I'm tired of not being a writer.
One of the things I've aimed for over the last fifteen years is happiness. I've blogged about this before in various places (my blogs are as dislocated and myriad as my dating history), but I grew up with this romanticized notion that great writing requires a sort of tortured despair, and that if I wanted to do anything with my writing (I'm not calling any of it great by any stretch), I had to resign myself to the sad. Then I decided that I'd rather be happy than sad, and if that meant giving up my writing, then fine. But I think it's a stupid, false dichotomy, and as Meg astutely pointed out, art comes from every state of mind, because art comes from life.
I think that all my past notions of art and writing must converge somewhere, somehow: the anguish and the joy, the boredom and the interest, the profundity and the mundanity. Maybe that's the still point of the turning world that Eliot talks about so beautifully. And at this point I don't have to choose one kind of writing over another; the choice to write is the only choice that matters, even if what I write is crap.
So here we are. I'm going to attempt to craft something out of each day, whether that something be sad or happy or deep or silly or fascinating or dull.
Today my mind keeps wandering over the past twelve months; a lot has happened in their course, and a lot will happen in the year to come. Just over a year ago I met my boyfriend for the first time, and the narrative that my memory has constructed focuses on the feelings I had (or remember having) at the time, when I first saw him, that I had just encountered someone special.
I was attending an areligious Easter dinner party, Hobbit-themed, hosted by a friend of my then-close-friend Steph. Since Steph and Kacy were the only two people I would know there, I, like a good cautious sometimes-introvert, quizzed Steph on the participants prior to the party. She sat at the kitchen table in the shabby little house she shared with her aunt, carefully applying makeup while I compiled all the ingredients for the salad I was taking, and gave me a brief run-down on the other invited guests. They all sounded quirky and geeky and fun, and then she said, "And then there's Chris. I met him last night helping to set up. He's an engineer in Detroit, and he also writes for our favorite website."
I perked up visibly. "Is he single?"
"I think so."
PERK. "Is he cute?"
"Not particularly."
"Huh. Well, looks aren't everything," I said, thinking Holy shit he sounds smart.
She frowned. "Long distance relationships are impossible."
I shrugged. "Not necessarily. Detroit isn't that far away."
"I guess not."
We assembled our various party offerings, piled into her car, and drove to Kacy's apartment complex. As we set up in the party room, I grew increasingly nervously excited - maybe I would make new friends! Maybe Chris was cute! Maybe I would trip and drop the salad everywhere! Maybe everyone would hate me!
The guests began to arrive, and as I stood chatting with them, I kept my peripheral vision trained on the door. And then a tall, dark-haired guy came walking into the room, and, arrested, I let myself stare for a moment, thinking, What the fuck was she talking about? He's super cute!
And that's where it all began.
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