7 Narcissistic Takes

7 Narcissistic Takes September 30, 2016

One
I am lying here in the early dawn covered by dogs and the chatter of one child, chiding myself that I didn’t do more yesterday, like draft this post. It has come to the point, as it does every other year or so, that the systems that keep all our lives ticking along in a more or less orderly fashion can no longer bear the weight of the changing people who inhabit them. They have to be reworked. Adjustments are required. Life Cannot Continue This Way. Or so I have been muttering to myself for three or four days.

The last time this happened we fell with happy and joyful cries upon the delights of Luncheon. We realized we hated trying to make supper and so we stopped doing it. One Meal A Day and all the glorious happiness that goes with it. I’m hoping for some similar magic to emerge from this reworking, although it’s going to be hard to top that wonder.
Two
The trouble is, I’m not really a morning person. Hard to believe, I know, but mornings are not the best time for me to cope with reality and life. I have tried to bash my way into mornings for the last couple of years by blogging. I “wake up”, I drink some tea, I fling some words at the Internet. Then, sometime later, I face the more real and true task of edumacating the children. The late afternoon finds me wandering around in a tired circle trying to do laundry and write email. Are you one of the many people to whom I owe a response? Don’t blame me, blame my broken systems.
Three
So, in a fit of what must be intelligence, but also complete lunacy, I’m going to try moving the Moment of Writing to the point when I emerge from that late afternoon stupor. You know that serendipitous time, when you shouldn’t be waking up, because it’s really time to go to bed, but the mind is suddenly completely alert. I tried it one time this week and it was fantastic. A smile, you might say, played about my lips as my rosy fingers jangled over the keyboard.
Four
But why Must you write? so many of you must be asking. Why? Why not stop writing for a while? Because really, there’s too much to read and too much to do. I really have been asking myself this for several days, especially after reading this fine piece. I pretty well love everything the author said. And, because I’ve basically been repeating everything I’ve ever said one more time, out of ennui and fatigue, I have take myself by the shoulders, given myself a shake, and said, Why Must you go on writing day after day, especially when you don’t really have anything to say. What is wrong with you. Stop it.
Five
But at the end of the day I feel like I can’t stop it (and it’s my feelings, of course, that matter most). I do do some confessional writing, as deacdibed in that excellent article. And I do sometimes use writing as a way of hiding, and other times as a way of revealing the troubled corners of my soul. But more than all that, and I do think this is some sort of personal failing, I write because otherwise I would never think. Writing Every Day has become a crutch like discipline for my disorganized mind. When I don’t write, I don’t really take the trouble to read, and when I don’t read, I don’t think, and even sometimes when I Do read I don’t think. Organizing words neat rows of coherent lines is more beneficial for me even than cleaning out my cupboards. It forces some small level of mental order.
Six
Moreover, and this is really more important I think, the only time you will find me involuntarily smiling is during the single hour I am casting words up onto the blank white screen. Mostly I walk around with my brow furrowed. And lots of people probably think I don’t like them, because I look like I’m scowling, which I guess I am. But the scowl is not because I hate all people. It’s because I am always worrying about the next thing, and ready to complain when things go wrong, and yell at the children. I never smile, for instance, during my school day. But I might find myself smiling, without meaning too, while I’m fixing a badly worded sentence. And so I do it every day as a matter of mental health.

It’s like if I were going to Marie Condo my life, and not just my cupboards, I would definitely throw away all my knitting, but it would be insane of me to throw away my keyboard.
Seven
This whole post is, what I believe you might call, Naval Gazing. My writing life doesn’t really matter in the whole scheme of things. If you’re still reading I would happily jump through the inter-webs to fall upon your neck with gratitude and wonder. You deserve some kind of pumpkin spice product. And now I hope you will go read more takes that are hopefully a lot more interesting and less narcissistic. Have a lovely day.


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