Welp! Here we are, together, on this here blank page. I’ve cleared the slate - deleted old blogs and stripped things down to the bones. I’m making room for something new-ish.
For a while now, I’ve wanted a place where I can think out loud and clarify my thoughts about the things that matter most to me. A place where I can write, revise, and revise some more with the goal of getting better, better at thinking, better at writing, better at writing about what I think.
Yes, I have journals, lots of them, but I want to push beyond personal diary writing and day-to-day documentation, and write toward and about the things that bind us, the things that break us down and build us up as humans. I won’t make any grand gestures though because at the moment, my writing sucks. My prose is choppy and unsure, and my poems are raw and unrefined. I feel the pull of Essay but Poetry feels safer at times. I will do both and probably more because…Sagittarius.
Simply put, I will try.
I will try to do language as Toni Morrison implored me (us) to do. I will reach for words and memories and make up stories with the strength that I have knowing that by doing so, I’ll get stronger and braver and better at telling these stories, my stories.
The stories I need to write.
The stories I (and perhaps you) need to hear.
Thankfully, there’s no real pressure to do it properly, Morrison says:
we know you can’t do it properly - once and for all.
passion is never enough; neither is skill.
but try.
for our sake and yours, forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light.
don't tell us what to believe, what to fear.
show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.
Whatever my decision - essay or poetry or a bits of both - just know that I’m thinking out loud and it’s all in progress.
-cd