Writing

Writing anything at all is easy; having it mean something is another matter. One thing I have learned, though, having anything mean something comes from an honest expression of feeling and knowledge. That knowledge is not all wise. But it is real, taught by experience. What you feel in specific situation is real to you and only to you; a companion who experiences the same situation will feel something similar, perhaps, but he or she will most likely know it differently. If each of you wrote about your experience, they would be different. Sharing only the common happening, all else would be quite different.

So it is that reading another’s thoughts are unique and fresh. Trite are those words and phrases that are expected and often repeated by other writers. Conventions and patterns of speech are shorthand for sameness. And boredom? Maybe. That depends on where we the reader are coming from as we consume the prose on the page.

Imagine for yourself what it would be like to live through an event you’ve never experienced. What would it be like? How would you express the feelings and unfolding realizations of the happening?

That’s what I’m talking about; now remember an actual event and write about that. Compare the two blurbs and rate freshness of spirit. Which is more starkly present and real? Maybe you cannot judge this for yourself; perhaps another reader can.

I have a good friend on tour for 14 days. She is seeing for the first time the Canadian Rockies, Lake Louise and Banff. These are places I would love to experience; meanwhile photos must suffice. And she is sending those photos through. They are every bit what I expected them to be. Some are pictures taken from the dome car on the train, a passing view of a mountain lake, or mountain pass. In the still form the photo speaks volumes. Wondering the same scene as it unfolds is another experience to imagine for me, to feel for her. She is there and I am not. But the details of the still photo come alive as I explore the nooks and crannies and individual trees dotting the landscape. Breathtaking in its entirety. As a passing scene? I’m not sure I could do it justice.

So the imagination is one thing and reality another. But life is lived in motion not in still photography. The latter provides the details; the former allows experience.

Writing that paragraph gives satisfaction. A truth, small but wondrous, has appeared from the words. Would we have thought the truth in any other way? Is that the genius of putting words on pages and attempting to say something? And is it genius or accident? Most likely the latter.

At least living by accident is living in the present. Fleeting as it is the present is actually the only true thing of life. The rest is what? Memory?

Maybe so, but it is from memories we paste together the meaning of it all. It is then we know we have experienced something rich and real; before we only sensed it.

August 24, 2017