the fact that I spent the past two days first vacuuming, then mopping my floor, the house feels dirty. Despite the fact the I finished revising chapter four, I feel like I’m not making any progress in THE BOOK. Despite the fact that the laundry is done and folded and ready to be put away, I feel lazy. I guess it’s like my friend M. said the other day, apropos of my “blah blah blah”: you sound like you’re putting in a sentence.. And not the proverbial “sentence” but, rather a bit of a death sentence, yes?
I think I’ve mentioned before how finishing THE BOOK takes me back to a time that feels so very far away, so far away in fact that when I read my journal entries from that period, I nearly don’t recognize myself. It was once the case–and my goodness, not so very long ago–that my remembering was so acute I had a hard time living in the (current) moment. Now, my remembering is so diffuse I have to look at medical records to know if Evan had two eye surgeries or three.
What a trick of memory (and memoir) this has turned out to be. The longer it takes to finish THE BOOK, the more distant it all becomes. Evan will be six in (less than) three short weeks. Six years since he was born and this all took place. I find myself starting to take “liberties” now that it’s been so long, not that the liberties are on the order of James Frey, but still. It’s time, isn’t is, to put it all away?
Comments 1
no no! not time to put it all away until you’ve put it all DOWN so we can all trot off to the bookstore and buy it and read it all UP and let it all sink DOWN until it becomes part of us. and then you can put it all away because we will all have a piece of it.
Posted 09 Jul 2006 at 6:05 pm ¶Post a Comment