Crack a few eggs and inhale
Writing got very serious and heavy and maybe there's only one way to undo that damage.
I used to be delighted by writing. I relished the opportunity to turn a throwaway moment into a glorious reminder that existing might actually be worth it. There was the kid tromping his toy T-rex through the wreckage of croissant flakes scattered across a cafe table in a Sydney suburb. The time a sparrow landed on my head in the middle of the Mercat Vell, perched in perfect stillness for just a moment, then clawed at my skull to take off again into the summer sky. The mugs on the shelf.
Some of you have been with me long enough to remember.
I used to joke about the joy I took in scrawling pages and pages about the surface of the old wooden bar that held up the pub where I snuck in before I should have. It’s out of business now. The bartender used his belt to hang himself in the woods in New Jersey. I spent many hours over many summers writing by hand about that one stone jetty that juts out farthest into the sea. The one out by the buoys where the kids play. You know the one. At least that’s still there.
But I don’t know what to write anymore. I haven’t been writing, and the less I write, the more I crave the ride of it. The high of an idea, the frustration of its expression, toiling over a single word for many hours before deciding it’s not done because it’s perfect, it’s done because it’s done. It’s a certain kind of quitting, really. All for a payoff so fleeting it can be hard to remember it’s waiting when you’re in it. That one moment, that one exhale. And then it’s gone.
There used to be sparks everywhere and I wrote about them all. Now there are sparks everywhere and none of them is good enough. I am constantly assessing, evaluating, weighing. And say what? I think. They don’t see it. No one cares.
The truth is I haven’t been seeing or caring very much lately myself.
The other day I caught myself enjoying the moment and I promptly wept. I was sitting at my desk with my eyes closed, feeling the daylight fighting its way through the dirty window to reach my face. I could see sheets of ice slicking up the alley outside, but I had a space heater blowing directly on my toes. I took a sip of espresso and lowered the ancient, fading floral demitasse back onto its saucer. I leaned back and listened to the album of my teenage grief and felt good and thought of how this has been happening every day, multiple times a day, and I have built a life that doesn’t even allow me to notice. I wept for the moments I’ve been missing. I wept for the machine I made.
Everything is content now. Everything, and therefore nothing. I’ve been working my way through my patron saints of writing as I seek to reemerge. Annie, Anne, Joan, Nora. But “everything is copy” is distinct from everything is content. Encouraging people to use everything they see and do to feed their art is very different from suggesting that everything they see and do is art.
The concept of content has contaminated experience.
In the mornings, I slice an onion into thin half moons and sauté them in room temperature butter. I toss them in the pan every now and then, lifting the whole thing up by the handle and flipping a few times to keep the sizzle from becoming a burn. Sometimes there’s garlic. Herbs. Spinach. There are always eggs, added after turning the heat down as low as it goes. The scramble is slow, soft, wet. I watch the curds take shape shyly, I inhale the aroma filling my tiny kitchen. I keep the overhead fan switched off so I can breathe it all in.
But as soon as there’s nothing left to do, when all that remains is to look and smell and wait, divining the perfect timing to take this mound of True Love from perfectly underdone in the pan to expertly cooked in the plate, the question of content creeps in.
Could I write about this?
In an instant, it’s all over. Suddenly, it’s just breakfast. Not only is the bubble of sensation burst, but so are the chances that I might write anything about it. Write what, anyway? No one cares about my fucking eggs. No one cares that I unwrapped a thin, flat wedge of Montgomery’s Cheddar a few weeks ago and when that barnyard cloud of hay and manure and frost wafted into my nose I stood there in the kitchen, perched perfectly still, thinking I might melt.
Who was there to tell? Come! Smell this! Look! Taste! Put your nose in it. Get close. Closer. Take it in. Can’t you see? Can’t you feel what I feel?
Love this:
I wept for the machine I made.
While I certainly understand the thought — indeed, it's what prevented me from writing more, myself — I can assure you that even if you have nothing overly profound to say, the joy as a reader is hearing you say it. Much like a plate of eggs, the result is humble, perhaps even meaningless in the grand sense. But still enjoyable. I will take joy every single place I can find it, and most especially in the humble, everyday, and forgettable. Because let's face it, it's easy to make someone like the big stuff. But finding a smile in a plate of eggs takes real mastery.