My tonic for a good night’s sleep is a cup of chamomile tea with a spoonful of honey. I believe it is the honey that really does the trick (since it replenishes your glycogen stores and keeps you from waking in a blood-sugar panic at 3:00 a.m.), but the chamomile makes for a nice bedtime ritual—and, besides, it is my grandpa’s favorite kind of tea.
In any case, I figure I may as well write a few words as I sip my chamomile tea with honey tonight. So here they are.
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It occurs to me that I have two options when it comes to the way I write. They include:
- Don’t think overmuch; just begin typing and let the words form into a sort of coherent nonsense, as I usually do.
- Stop and settle down into myself, and meditate—really think—about a subject of my choosing. Then write developed, well-considered prose: something cogent and shapely. This requires stillness and planning and thought. It doesn’t skim the surface, as option (1) is wont to do. This method of writing and thinking scares me away for precisely this reason: it demands more of me and asks me to sit—sometimes for an uncomfortably long interval—with an idea that wants to be entertained fully and with some semblance of order.
Figuratively speaking, I am not good at sitting still. I jump and flutter from bough to bough like a slight, excitable bird. People close to me have told me this before—oh, how many times! In conversation, I begin to hit on something important, something that resonates at the core—but then I flit and flutter away in a spasm of nerves, avoiding the danger in a swift and obvious maneuver. I dread the moment of awkward pause, when the other person stops to consider his reply, so to hasten away the silence, I inelegantly change the topic, flying away to another train of thought and leaving the mystery untapped, unplumbed, unrevealed.
In the end, it is just another way of putting up a shell. It is a way of making distance. Even now, writing this, I have made distance the reigning king. I have written this entry, almost from start to finish, using the pronoun “you” to refer to myself. I have only gone back at the end to edit every “you” to read “I.” The difference this change makes is palpable. Why do I address myself in the second person when I write? Perhaps it is because there are so many voices inside of my brain, squabbling with so much din and chatter, that this is the only way to cut through the detritus and tell my story in a sensible way.
It would be good to take the time to sit with words and ideas a little longer. It will certainly require discipline. It may require pressing through uncomfortable moments. But skimming the surface is only satisfying for so long. Even the sandpiper bird, who drops low to skim the surface of the ocean waves, sooner or later goes home to nest.
But I can’t shake the nonsense completely; nor would I want to. So I hope it won’t be too much of a bother if I conclude by writing in my usual fast-paced way of stringing together whatever words come to mind:
Oh, the little swallow! He’s so sad under the linden tree. Why is he sad? you say. Oh, dear, isn’t it plain? He’s sick with love. He has been mourning his love for days, singing beneath the linden tree. Birds are creatures with fast-beating hearts. They are quick to love, quick to mourn, quick to die. The flutter of their wing is only an expression of their nimble hearts: they beat the air to tell the other birds: “Love has beaten my breast and now the only thing I can do is fly.” It’s simple, dear. They’re noble creatures, but not hard to understand. Their only care is for the sound of their mate, chirruping through the heavens as the sun rolls out over the moon. Oh, dear, you are young yet. But you will see. On your birthday you will grow a little older, and you will see. The way of the birds is not a mystery to those who have loved. That’s why we chirrup and hum in that half-abstracted way when we’re thinking about the one who beat our breast. It’s the closest thing we have to flight.
Some more nonsense:
A pauper gave me a paper bag.
He had put two pennies inside.
I said: “Well, sir, I don’t know what it’s for!”
He said: “My dear, you’re going to need them one day.”
About time for you to realize that the earth is not yours. It is mine and yours and everyone else’s. I found you asleep in the loft. You were sweet, asleep. Why do you worry and make so much trouble for yourself? You hold yourself like iron. Don’t your muscles get stiff? I’d rather be soft and warm and full of peace. But that’s your choice, isn’t it? If you get tired of being so cold, I’ll be in bed, warm and fast asleep.