I take a short break from my planned evening of Star Trek/Port/Sewing/Donuts to write this
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| Fade in on Mark, who's still in the dark, |
Possibly it is too early in the night, and in my drink, to be writing yet. Possibly.
I come home late these days, I stay up late. And I want to tell you about what I do in those times, and what pieces become of those hours.
My brain often isn't quick enough. When I have a serious conversation, when I think seriously about things, or try and deal with my issues or someone else's issues, it takes time. Hours. Days. I usually only find what I want to say much later. Usually at night, when I've had time to drive, and think, and process. And talk to myself. It's too late, then.
I come up with story ideas. I come up with conversations that I wish I could have. I come up with things that I wish I could express to real people.
Sometimes I write those things down, in letters. I address them to people that I want to understand. I write the things that are so hard to express in words, but because I don't know how to make them into words, I try on paper and fail. Ultimately, I always fail.
My desk has drawers and books, crammed with half-finished and half-started letters.
I have a zero percent success rate in sending these late-night truths out into the black.
That yellow paper is a recent one. It is about to find a permanent home in a journal or an old date book.
The white sheet underneath is a letter that I wrote during the sunlight hours. I dreamed the contents at night, and refined the thoughts during the day, when I was working and had brief moments to think. That one might make it, fledgling thin.g
Two or three years ago, I destroyed a box of letters. I didn't want them anymore. Sometimes I think about them, not because they mean anything to me or because I want them back, but because they existed, they were created and thought out, they told a story, and I destroyed them.
Sometimes I rip up my little bird pages, but mostly I let them live in nooks and crannies. I shove them there so I don't have to look at them or be reminded of the things I've left unsaid. Sometimes when I loan books to people, I forget to give them a quick shuffle to make sure there aren't any incriminating pages. Then I feel a squeeze of panic.
Someday someone will find my books and my pages and my letters, and will wonder how it all turned out.
