Meditation. Looking into the void. What do you see? Stars. A black, pulsating void with lights and stars in it. Then the devastating feeling of not being loved, of never having been loved, of the total absence of love from outside and then the happy remembrance that there is an abundance of love on the inside. And the vulnerability, the despair, the sadness, the fear of never having been loved remains as a lure, the proverbial seduction of despair. Then I turn to money and I feel the anguish of lack and the rabid jealousy towards those that have. If I think about why I am here and if there is any truth to the idea that a soul chooses a birth to learn a particular lesson I am sure mine is connected to money. But as I write that I remember Lacan said “Money and mother”. It’s all anyone ever talks about in therapy. So it can’t be particular to me. I have to find what IS particular to me. Or at least try. I sometimes feel overwhelmed at all the fragments of text in small files. What can I do with them? How can I find a way to love them? How can I sort what is important from what is not important? Back to the beginning. I have to start again at the beginning, or call this the beginning. Stop bemoaning myself for not being able to write the story I feel somehow morally obliged to write, that is not my story, and come up with a good, decent, thoroughly enjoyable free-flowing story starting today. Find out who I am and what I have to say.

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.

I never did find my voice. I mean, the voice I thought would pour out of me like a stream, telling it all, with no effort on my part. I catch a glimpse of a world with no animosity between people. A world of benevolent kindness. I wonder if the two things are related. Me not finding my voice but stumbling on the possibility of an emotional truce. This failure to realize one’s potential breaks my heart. We are all such a disappointment to ourselves and to everybody else. In my emotional truce zone, we all just have the right to be, to exist, to live and breathe and eat and sleep and talk and not be judged. Then there is music.