11:46 p.m. - 2012-03-20
writing
Going through books in the basement, looking for something in Russian to tackle, I found an old paperback by Earl Lovelace ...
Not the one he gave me. I couldn't find that one. But it made me sad anyway.
I took a creative writing class with him when I was a college freshman and he was a visiting professor at Wellesley. Freshmen were required to take English comp but I had already taken a college English comp class a couple of years before, so they let me take Earl Lovelace's senior-level creative writing class instead.
I don't remember anything I wrote for that class but I do remember that he told me I was one of the most talented writers he'd ever taught, that I was probably destined to be famous one day. On the last day of class he asked me to meet him at his office and he gave me a speech to that effect and then wrote it in one of his books and signed it and handed it to me...
Maybe I believed too, back then ... I was thrilled and shocked but maybe not entirely surprised; I knew I was a very good writer and I had a lot to say ... back then...
I don't know why I don't write anymore. I have been numb for years and had nothing to say. I can't make the words sing anymore; it's like a 2-year-old banging on a piano.
My ability to write pretty much dried up along with my friendship with K, my BFF/other half, ten years ago. I think I used to write to her, in a way; without her to listen my voice ceased to exist.
I wonder if maybe it's just lost, not dead -- but I have no idea how to find it so I don't suppose it makes much difference.
I lost my passion ... as she slipped further and further away I tried to build a new life to fill the void, but everything in my new life was gray and cardboard. There was no replacing her so I tried to forget when all the colors were bright and I could taste the wind and I was passionnate about writing, passionnate about her, passionate about being alive. I tried to forget feeling that way because otherwise reality was unbearable. I guess I must have succeeded to some extent because I forgot how to write, and I became a depressed, miserable blank with nothing to say.
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