My Writing Practice

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave..."

I paced the room several times last night, feeling this burning anxiety running through my body. Like I was about to jump out of my own skin. Like my mind didn't want be in here anymore. And maybe if I kept moving, I could out run it, or shake it out of my system, or something. Change. And wrapped in that feeling were the words. A story that was starting. Maybe a song? This is how it begins.

Disjointed. 

Angular. 

The sounds falling against each other and pushing away. It's like trying to find the matching pieces to a puzzle. There is something here. Something that is trying to define itself. Fragments of rhythms.

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave?"

"What?" Rachel called to me softly from the bedroom, barely making it to the living room,"Sounded like you said something."

"No," I muttered, "Just... thinking..." my voice dropping off as I kept circling a track around the sofa.

"not the love... you'd ever leave. You can't da-da-dum, good memories..."

Just ideas that aren't growing. 

What is she? What is she to herself? What does she want? 

I lay down on the couch with these elusive ideas on me. This is all nothing. A Meditation for writing. My practice. Writing is raising the dead. Putting form to ghosts and vapors of ideas. Trying to fill them with weight. Trying to fill them with life. If they can't live and fell and act, in my mind, they will never survive in the world. 

Maybe that's why sometimes it feels like magic. A series of synapses firing in unison. Ideas from disparate lobes pushing together to make something. A color and a word. A feeling and texture. A taste and a sound. And they need to make her real.

"What is she?"

"Rene?"

"Yeah?"

"It sounds like your talking?" her voice is low, 
she is half in a dream already.

I'm keeping her awake. "Sorry babe..." and I sincerely am.

I have a habit of talking out loud when I write. Rachel says it's a creepy sounding voice, I don't know what it sounds like, I don't even realize that I'm doing it. I have a habit of staying up late. I have a habit of disappearing mentally from conversations. I have a habit of sleep paralysis. I have a habit of saying yes to everything. Of wanting to do too much. Of getting carried away. Of being too detached. I have a lot of bad habits. I guess I'm saying, I'm too lucky to have a wife that puts up with me.

I wanted a new song done by tonight. But that wasn't happening. And some how I got the idea that I was better off watching some Netflix than keeping this up.

And I did. Or started to.

I spent a good amount of time, feet propped up, shirtless, flipping through menu, checking my phone when I get an update from some social media thing. Not finding anything.Thinking of all the things I need to get done this week. Edit the podcast, finish a mix of a new Idyll Green song that will debut soon, start edits on a song we are recording, get back to my novel. And these are all swirling around me. 

I closed my eyes.

There, I saw the time we lay

in her room. When I learned 

she was a prism. We were tossed 

sheets and legs and the sun came in 

to catch her. She turned a vision 

on the walls. She danced 

like she was. So clear. 

So open. like everything could be 

                                               light

-rene 

On Our Way To Atlanta/ Our Eyes

On Our Way To Atlanta/ Our Eyes

"Where were you?" Those words were in the room, but I don't know who said them. Might have been me and I just don't remember.

But I knew as she turned to me. I knew her eyes, cause they were like mine. Everyone always said I had her eyes. And they watched me as I came through the door. And they watched me as I felt this grip tighten in my chest.

Excitement and Fear. 

I can't tell the difference when they're on me. 

"When..." I began but the words were held tight by that grip, "When did you get here?"

"I don't want to talk like that Rene?" she called me over to the couch. "I'm just stopping for a second."

I can think of a thousand things I wanted to say. But there in the living room was the same as the hospital. When she woke up for a moment between naps, and she looked at me. Normally she smiled when she woke up to one of us sitting by her. But this was more tired. This time she saw me. Her eyes. I remember the color.

Our color.

Excitement and fear. 

And again no words.

She always had words. She was stronger than me. Stronger than anyone I've known. So even if she only had a second she only asked about me. Asked about my life. My work. My family.

"Here," I said, like magic holding a photo in my hand to give her, "You would've loved it. I wish you could've seen it."

"I know," she said it gently as she looked over the picture.

I wonder that all the time. If she saw it. If she knew how it would be after she left. All the things she would miss. And all the things that would happen. She was so strong. I feel like she could've figured it out. That she dreamed it. She dreamed my wedding. She dreamed my son. Maybe more. She dreamed the music. She dreamed my old age. She dreamed my brothers. And my father. And generations unborn. Holidays make me think like this. And it keeps me up so many nights. But this night I was sleeping through it.

She took the photo. And I felt so light.

Right before the ground shook. And everything in the room was vibrating. Falling away. The dream disappearing.

And our eyes. Looking at me, in that tiny bus bathroom. I felt so tired. And I looked worse. Like I wasn't taking care of these eyes.

Wash Face. Brush Teeth. Contacts burning. Ibuprofen.

And I stumble out of the little stall as the bus pulls out. A few of the guys are sitting in the front lounge. Staring out windows. Quietly cell phoning. And I get a water bottle finding my seat. Watching the trees pass as we headed into Atlanta.

And thinking of my mothers voice. I could still feel that grip.

Fear. Excitement. Tiredness.

"How much further?" I asked Lindsay.

She was cuddled into a corner, reading. "30 mins. I think."

I put on my headphones. Look at the tree. The green. The hazel tint of fall. Our color. And the day ahead. Fear. Excitement. Tiredness.

-rene