The accountable journal. Believe it or not, I am still thinking about who the narrator is or could or should be. But none of my hesitations or doubts can stop the story from being told. (oops, this is not that file. But what does it matter? I have to just come out and admit it, I want to write every day as a way to de-clutter my mind. I can’t “force” myself to produce something “worth” reading for someone else. But I can keep a promise made to myself to allow myself to allow the words to flow regularly. As soon as I cover “allow to flow” I immediately think of menstrual periods and the stress, horror, shame, pain, inconvenience and dread they caused. Until they didn’t. Part of me wants to write “that” story, write everything concerning menstrual periods I experienced in my life. Then another story could be sex. Sexual arousal. Sexual satisfaction (what??? I wrote that because those two words are so often used together and because it is more satisfying to write “sexual satisfaction” than to write “sexual frustration” and I think oh my god how the words I write manipulate me, have an effect on me and I feel suffocated and yet isn’t this a slight chink of enlightenment? Not only can I force (entice, allow) myself to write every day but I could also influence the words I write to influence how I feel. Short circuit!!! I feel as if I had never imagined that possibility, of writing for myself, because it is selfish and greedy and ultimately incestuous?

A story I didn’t want to tell. Or didn’t intend to tell. I have a lot more work to do, a lot more thinking to do, before I can start the writing. So, yes, here I am write in the thick of it, having decided to start, having started, nothing holding me back and yet discovering that I don’t know how to tell the story. Who is the narrator? Or narrators. Perhaps all the characters should tell their side of it. It seems somehow wrong that the person telling it is not directly involved but isn’t that always the case? Or maybe I should tell another story en attendant. About a girl who wanted to sing. Or something else or someone else. The story hasn’t been chosen yet. Once again, I lay myself down to the power of the Muses and lay my fingers on the keyboard and open my mind and allow them to decide what they want to say through me. Why was I born? Why did I fall in love with words, with books, with music? Who am I? or as Margeurite Duras put it, what would I write if I were to write? Not the story that has been blocking the entrance to my cave for so long. Not that one, that I have been telling everybody I’m writing but I have only been thinking about. Time flies whether you use it or not. You know you will make progress if you force yourself to produce words. And yet you did that before and all it got you was a trunk full of notebooks. You refuse to admit that you must choose the destination. If you want the car to drive you to a place of its choice then you will have no right to complain about where you are or about being lost. You are older now, surely mature? Wiser, yes.

Pouring. Just pour on the paint and then tilt the surface. Looks strangely like chagreen. Verdigris. One part of me wants to write freely and allow the words to tumble out and another part of me believes that words that come out fast can only be senseless. Every small step into existence requires the breaking of inner barriers. Did I ever even ask myself if I want to make sense? I thought I wanted to find out who I am, explore my inner self, introduce it to the outside world, allow the words to tell me a story I do not know, surprise and entertain me. All and none of the above.

Trickle

Well, it may not be a gushing torrent but stream on it does. Like that solar-powered fountain in my parents' Scottish garden that sprayed in intermittent spurts when the clouds moved on. Mettre ça chose au monde. It doesn't have to be regular. Maybe it could no even be regular; that would be somehting quite different.