One Sentence at a Time.
You read this blog, and that book, and those letters, and these novels because you (likely) share a passion for the power of the written word to change us/them/you/me/andeveryoneweknow in much the same way we are irrevocably altered by love, laughter, a desire to relate, to move forward, or never at all. I read novels and underline passages that, in that moment, feel earth shattering, and then never lay eyes on them again, and maybe even forget (them), or I read them aloud to friends/lovers/strangers/co-workers, over and over and over again. I write fan letters to writers whose words change me for one millisecond or for-ever-ever, in a seemingly failed (written) attempt to match their own ability to wake me (and you) up on the inside(out), temporarily or otherwise. I created this blog because we (me and you) have an understanding that words are everything and nothing simultaneously, but mostly everything. Enjoy!
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When I was in college, I used to carry aroudn famous literary passages in my bag, to memorize. Only the grimmest woud do, of course: Richard ll's death speech ("For God's sake let us sit upon the ground...), Cleopatra's (Is this the asp...), the final paragraph of The Great Gatsby. One day, sitting on the grass at college, someone strumming his guitar stumbled over the words to Judy Collin's Clouds. I pulled a copy out of my bag. He was shocked and asked why I had them. I couldn't explain. Now I know why.
ReplyDeleteBack in junior high school, I passed a lot of notes. More than just the clandestine nature of this type of writing, I think I just loved having limited space to say what I felt was most important in a quick couple of seconds. You made sure that what you were writing was really worth it. One time, I wrote a terribly descriptive and offensive note about my English teacher. The girl I passed the note to idiotically left the note inside her desk before leaving for next period's class. Needless to say, within 15 minutes, I was in the hallway with one angry teacher and a finger pointed at my face. She told me I was "a little bitch." Despite it all, I couldn't help but think that I had just written a really, really good note. I wish I still had it.
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