I'm not sure what to write about these days. Shall I write about how typing the last words of my first ever novel made me feel? Shall I write about how, in the shower one morning, I suddenly felt incredibly content with my life? Why not both?
Thirty-four chapters later, and the book is done. Well, perhaps not done, but drafted and given bone and bits of flesh. What remains is for me to polish the manuscript and tighten things up or loosen others, a bit like how I imagine Mario and Luigi go around directing water flows in Mushroom World. As I keep saying, it may never get published, but having written something now of great length (somewhere around 210,000 words), it feels as though I have finally given birth. The question is, now that I have this precious thing in my care, what am I to do with it? Why, raise it of course-- mold it and shape it according to the pleasure of God. That will take some time and effort of a different kind, but it will be easier in one way at least: I won't have to generate pages upon pages of brand-new material. A snip here, a slash there, a new conversation here, a silence there-- now we're onto the finishing strokes that make a sketch into a painting.
It took so much more out of me than I imagined it would. Part of me still thinks writing must be like those cut scenes from Finding Forrester where you see the kid blazing away at a typewriter to some Miles Davis tune. Sure, there are moments like that, but they last about thirty seconds before you're gritting your teeth and trying not to use verb-adverb constructions and listening as you write for echoes in the text. Damn, it's hard. Yet the best piece of advice I got as I finished off the final chapters was from Annie Dillard's book, The Writing Life. She says "write like you're dying." In many ways, that is the truth of all living, that we live as if we are dying-- because we are. However, with regards to the task of writing something as inconsequential as literature, it means not taking shortcuts and mustering the strength to write the best you can instead of tossing off a chapter you know will please those who are reading for the plot and not for the subtle notes of characterizations, metaphors, or allegories. It's the latter that interests me the most. Probably has something to do with having had a little training in biblical studies-- you never read stories the same after you understand that part of the art of the biblical narrative is not in the plain sense of the text, but in the folds and wrinkles that show through the foibles and sin of a thousand years of human existence. It's in these folds and wrinkles that God shows Himself.
Writing is something I know I will persevere in, though some days it makes me feel like a convict stamping out license plates. I am compelled by a flow of language through me, if that makes any sense. My friends who speak in tongues say that it is almost like dipping your mind into a constant stream of background music. Writing-- or, at least the compulsion to do something as absurd and impractical as writing-- is a bit like that. What use are tongues except for the one who speaks them? And what use is writing except for the author to have stepped away in the end and said "glad I got that out of me." Oh, there are a few who genuinely enjoy what I write, and for them I am very grateful-- but writing to change the heart is about as immediately rewarding as pastoral ministry. You never really get to see the bloom of your hope for others. You simply put your head down, enter into the world of other people, and work with what's there, trusting all the while that God is doing something in spite of your hamhandedness. In the case of writing, you enter into the world of a people who only exist in your head.
Yet as difficult and insane as the task of writing is-- it bears mentioning that all the published writers I know are slightly mad, and would smile and laugh if I told them so-- I wouldn't have it any other way.
As I stood in the shower one morning, I realized with a jolt that although the exact circumstances of my life are not as I had hoped they would be, the general shape and rhythm of it is exactly as I had hoped for. It is, for those who understand, a Hobbit's life-- a quiet life in a green part of town, punctuated by long walks (in my case, runs), good food, and generally speaking, the life of an English country squire. Perhaps that is too idyllic for what it means to be me at the moment, but I appreciate all the opportunities I have and have been given, because how they were given to me-- through years of bitterness-- was not exactly how I imagined it to be granted.
It is not as though I don't fight battles anymore, it is just that the battles I fight are the right ones. A man from my congregation tried to bully me the other day, but I rebuffed him by simply pointing out "you're a bully." I didn't mean it to be hurtful in the sense that playground taunts are often meant, it was the simple truth of the matter, and by pointing it out, I was also telling him that I would not let him bully me. I am his servant, but I am not his slave. It was a difficult battle to fight, but it was the right one, not only for him to hear and feel flustered and ashamed over, but for me to take the stand and speak the truth. I even and especially welcome the opportunities to disciple others-- though, for the moment, much of that discipleship comes in the form of simple teaching and much patience. (much patience!) It means walking with other people, a slow and agonizing process-- not merely dropping sermonic bombs and getting the hell out of Dodge.
I have so much of what I need at the moment. I live in a truly blessed little apartment that looks out over a quiet walkway and trees and shrubs of many kinds. (At this moment, I am looking out on oak, maple, willow, ash, rhododendron, honeysuckle, elder, lilac, apple, pine, fir, and others whose names escape me.) I am paid well enough that rent is not a problem, nor is buying the frivolous things like General Tao's Chicken chips from the Superstore beyond my means. And though I might often be lonely, I am surrounded by a community of friends and people who do love me. Yes, I am that content with being single, though there are moments-- long moments-- when I do wish that there was someone to share all this beauty with.
The life I wanted-- the quiet life I wanted-- has been dropped into my lap. My loving aunt wrote me from Hong Kong, saying "since life is quiet for you right now, maybe you should come back and visit." Perhaps there was a note of wistfulness in my previous email to her about how quiet my life is (and therefore, from some perspectives, boring), but this is where I ought to be and where I am called. Princeton? Hong Kong? Still maybe, but for now, this is where I am led and where I have been blessed. Now, maybe, I will have the chance to pass this blessing onto others.
Comments (2)
congrats on your first baby.. =) yay!
@ocean_floor - thanks! And to think, there might be twins... ;)