In Other Words

Every so often I read a book that does more than simply impress me: it also inspires me. Over the last couple of days, I started and finished Miriam Toews‘s The Flying Troutmans. Something about it, but probably not the content or even the characters and more likely its Canadianness — (so there to all the many whiners and critics and academics who still debate and mourn the lack of Canadian identity) — made me feel like writing again. Most of the time I don’t feel I belong in Canada. But when I read Canadian literature, which I believe has very distinct flavour — in fact, each region has its own flavour — I sense a kindred spirit.

It’s been a long time since I was a prolific writer, and a longer time still since I last wrote a story. Not just a good story, any story. I have my old ones on this site not just to share but to remind me that I once had a skill I wasn’t afraid to use, a glimmer of talent that I was actually compelled to flesh out, that I enjoyed cultivating. The other day, as I was making sure the pages on this new theme looked all right, I found myself reading a few snippets of my own stuff, posts here and there, bits and pieces of stories.

I thought, It’s one thing when you immerse yourself in your own writing because you think you’re good at it and you enjoy reading yourself. But it’s quite another thing to have your own sentences snag your attention by accident and then surprisingly keep it, even after much time has passed. I’m good at this, I thought. I’m actually good at something and I’m not even doing it. I’m wasting a talent, or skill, or both. I’m wasting the opportunity to become even better at it.

Two things surprised me about all this: first, I genuinely believed my writing was good and I was experiencing a deep but not yet fully fledged hope, a flickering of belief that if I allowed myself to, I could be successful at writing. I didn’t apologize for that feeling, and I didn’t allow myself guilt for being immodest or fear that people would feel I was daft in thinking highly of my writing. Definitely surprising. Second, I came across my about page where I’d long ago written that I wish to be published, and I realized with a start that this is actually still true. I do still wish to be published. Perhaps this is a sign I’ve been waiting for?

There have been two constants in my life so far: my deep and abiding love for books (reading them, admiring them, buying them, smelling them, caressing them, possessing them) and writing. From the graph of alphabet attempts I made at age 3 1/2 or 4, to the twenty-odd journals, to the stories, paragraphs, writing assignments, essays, articles, letters, to the blog posts and snippets of dialogue or character sketches on scrap paper, I’ve spewed words upon words, found the right ones, rolled them around in my brain and on my tongue (a word sommelier), and strung them together as (instinctively) artfully as I could. Trying to let these constants guide me toward what I might want to do for a living, I’ve worked in bookstores and for a publishing company where I designed layouts, typeset, edited, project managed. I’ve worked in libraries. I copyedit and proof manuscripts. I began this blog. But nothing has hit me between the eyes yet.

I’ve lamented here before that I feel I lack purpose, that I have no clue whatsoever in which direction I wish to take my life. And then how can I go anywhere if I don’t know what I want? Jack Sparrow‘s compass pointed in the direction of your heart’s true desire, and it stubbornly refused to work if you weren’t sure of what you wanted. I’ve agonized over my belief that nothing is ever for certain, a belief likely caused by my inability to make decisions, my fickleness, and my fear of commitment. I have actually wished that God, in his ultimate frustration at seeing his little Pisces flopping and floundering on dry land, would take pity and pick me up, dust me off, give me wings, and send me flying in the right (very clear) direction. A flying fish. That shimmering little marvel that every now and then leaps out of its comfort zone to feel the wind in its wee sails.

I’ve always paid a good deal of attention to the authors of the books I’m interested in. Aside from noticing that I have a very indefinable taste in literature, what has struck me is the age of these authors. Increasingly, I find that the authors of the books I choose are young, my age or even younger. It gives me pause every time: there’s a twinge of jealousy, regret, that strange feeling of mingled hope and despair. I can yet write something (I’m not yet “too old” to be one of these authors!) but when am I going to do it?

Sounds like Someday Syndrome, doesn’t it? Alex and I are just starting to work on this. My first assignment is to make decisions and stick with them for this entire month, even if I feel afterward that the decision was 100% wrong. We’re working on my confidence, on my sense of being lost, on trusting myself. So far I’ve cheated: the other day when I couldn’t decide on which tea set to buy with a gift certificate I received for my birthday, I bought both (no regrets!).

This morning, I stumbled on a blog and found the question What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? And then later today, while I was in Chapters (making decisions on which books to buy), I happened upon another question, on the back of a novel: Who would you be if you weren’t who you’ve let yourself become?

Interesting, yes? All these signs? Perhaps this is God dusting me off and pointing me in the right direction. Because my answer to the first question was WRITE. And my answer to the second question was A person not afraid of failure…or success. A person not afraid to write.

Seems to me, however, that I’m left to grow my own wings.