My Struggle to Become a Writer:
I am a writer. I have been a writer all of my life. Straight out of the womb,
you might ask. No, of course not. Don’t be stupid. I was a writer BEFORE I
left the womb. There wasn’t anything else TO DO while I waited for my
birth, and so I wrote. I wrote about a lot of things. I wrote about submarines
and endlessly beating drums. I wrote about a child who was repeatedly
clubbed in the head. I wrote about whales, dolphins and other sea
creatures. I wrote about a hysterical young boy who always got in trouble
and yelled at by his mother. I wrote about fish, and a great race between
the fish where the winner of the race receives a prize – a giant golden
egg. I wrote about scuba diving and kickboxing… and mermaids who get
tangled up in seaweed. I wrote about slime. I wrote about hotdogs and chili
burgers. I wrote about gurgling brooks, and volcanoes with terrific gaseous
eruptions. I wrote about darkness. I was the darkness. I wrote about
underwater sea turtles. I wrote the book, the book of love.
I didn’t have a pen, so I wrote all this stuff with my mind.
And then something tragic happened. I suffered a head-crushing trauma.
The pain made my eyes feel like white hot fire. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t
think. I froze on the snowy tundra. Things were horrible. I had to learn how
to see again, to rebuild my mind again. I had to learn how to eat! And to
walk! Nay! - CRAWL! I had to learn how to crawl and then to walk! I had to
learn how to communicate with grunts and cries and frustrated screams
because nobody understood what I meant! And then I had to rehabilitate
with ongoing speech therapy and then to READ and to TIE MY SHOES!
I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO SPELL AND TO COUNT ON MY FINGERS and
that I HAD fingers! I had to learn to stop picking my nose! (not!) I had to
learn to use THE TOILET! And to pull up my own PANTS! I had to learn to
concentrate and to not fidget and to stop poking people in the EYE! And
then I lost all my TEETH! And then new ones grew in and it HURT! I had to
learn to stop sucking my thumb! (one day, maybe) And then two lymph
nodes on my chest swelled! (slightly) And I sustained a mysterious internal
injury that, TO THIS DAY, keeps bleeding! And then I had to tend the
mastery of making out with boys and getting SHITFACED! YEA, I had to do
ALL THESE THINGS BY THE TIME I WAS FIFTEEN! And I was forced to
drive a car and HANG OUT WITH FRIENDS! I was MADE TO LISTEN TO
HEAVY METAL MUSIC and go to CLUBS and CHECK OUT DUDES WITH
LONG HAIR! And to wear SPANDEX! I was forced to police my head with
AQUA NET and to PAINT MY EYES WITH BRIGHT BLUE POWDERS like
the SKY or the SEA! And to write. Ah, yes, to write again! To come back to
the pen – to the pen I never knew in the womb… to become… ah, yes, to
become… a writer.
And that's how it all happened.
Kind of.
For the most part.
Only I'm leaving a bunch of stuff out.
I am a writer. I have been a writer all of my life. Straight out of the womb,
you might ask. No, of course not. Don’t be stupid. I was a writer BEFORE I
left the womb. There wasn’t anything else TO DO while I waited for my
birth, and so I wrote. I wrote about a lot of things. I wrote about submarines
and endlessly beating drums. I wrote about a child who was repeatedly
clubbed in the head. I wrote about whales, dolphins and other sea
creatures. I wrote about a hysterical young boy who always got in trouble
and yelled at by his mother. I wrote about fish, and a great race between
the fish where the winner of the race receives a prize – a giant golden
egg. I wrote about scuba diving and kickboxing… and mermaids who get
tangled up in seaweed. I wrote about slime. I wrote about hotdogs and chili
burgers. I wrote about gurgling brooks, and volcanoes with terrific gaseous
eruptions. I wrote about darkness. I was the darkness. I wrote about
underwater sea turtles. I wrote the book, the book of love.
I didn’t have a pen, so I wrote all this stuff with my mind.
And then something tragic happened. I suffered a head-crushing trauma.
The pain made my eyes feel like white hot fire. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t
think. I froze on the snowy tundra. Things were horrible. I had to learn how
to see again, to rebuild my mind again. I had to learn how to eat! And to
walk! Nay! - CRAWL! I had to learn how to crawl and then to walk! I had to
learn how to communicate with grunts and cries and frustrated screams
because nobody understood what I meant! And then I had to rehabilitate
with ongoing speech therapy and then to READ and to TIE MY SHOES!
I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO SPELL AND TO COUNT ON MY FINGERS and
that I HAD fingers! I had to learn to stop picking my nose! (not!) I had to
learn to use THE TOILET! And to pull up my own PANTS! I had to learn to
concentrate and to not fidget and to stop poking people in the EYE! And
then I lost all my TEETH! And then new ones grew in and it HURT! I had to
learn to stop sucking my thumb! (one day, maybe) And then two lymph
nodes on my chest swelled! (slightly) And I sustained a mysterious internal
injury that, TO THIS DAY, keeps bleeding! And then I had to tend the
mastery of making out with boys and getting SHITFACED! YEA, I had to do
ALL THESE THINGS BY THE TIME I WAS FIFTEEN! And I was forced to
drive a car and HANG OUT WITH FRIENDS! I was MADE TO LISTEN TO
HEAVY METAL MUSIC and go to CLUBS and CHECK OUT DUDES WITH
LONG HAIR! And to wear SPANDEX! I was forced to police my head with
AQUA NET and to PAINT MY EYES WITH BRIGHT BLUE POWDERS like
the SKY or the SEA! And to write. Ah, yes, to write again! To come back to
the pen – to the pen I never knew in the womb… to become… ah, yes, to
become… a writer.
And that's how it all happened.
Kind of.
For the most part.
Only I'm leaving a bunch of stuff out.
| "There’s no point in lamenting something we didn’t have when we could spend our energy striving to fill the bottomless pit of our perceived failures, never able to enjoy the thing we seek because we never believe we can truly ever have it." |
| "Am I the only one who sees that the elephant is in the living room, and he’s taking a gigantic dump on our heads?!" |
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