I Tried

Just another random event, at home, on a saturday night.

I've been remiss in writing here, mainly because I have no regular access to the internet, but also because these days I have felt CLEAN of any INTERESTING MATERIAL, otherwise known as BORING AS HELL. Actually, there are a number of things I'd LIKE to write about, but I am up against that WHAT IS APPROPRIATE. I can't talk about work, or situations that might prove TOUCHY for other people, unless I want to create problems for myself (which I don't), but OH IT'S SUCH GOOD DIRT!

In any case, here is some NEWSY stuff. I am going to be posting more flyers soon. I was inspired by the recent article in the Newyorker on the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who wrote a short play every single day for a year. She said that it became this sort of daily prayer to art, to life, to a life of art, and it seemed to take a life of its own. It made me think again of ritual, and how much I thrive witha a very specific daily practice. The flyers are relatively easy. They are quick, so I can fit them in during any kind of busy day, and they require both writing and drawing. I think I can do them every day for a single year. So it's been just over a week, and so far so good. I don't look at them again, because it feels like they lose their meaning if I check back on my work so soon. I want to give it two weeks, before I look back on them. So right now, they are quietly forming themselves in a folder above my desk. Everytime I think I don't have it in me, I am surprised by what I find again and again: an old prom date, a first night in Brooklyn, my kid brother's cereal bowl. Things I haven't given a second thought IN YEARS. Somehow I think that is what writing can give us--our lives back. Here I think I am so clean of material, when as I think about it, I've been working over the details of my life, and creating stories from them. It's just that it is SO QUIET. There aren't any giant firworks or parades or GREAT LEAPS that can be seen. Yet, somehow the leap is in the trying. I swear, my tombstone will read: I tried. Maybe that's all there is to do.