“Looking back at some of these essays – “essay” in the sense of “attempt” – I feel I might write them in another way if I were writing them today. But then, I’d be unlikely to write them today. Everything we do is embedded in time, and time changes not only us, but our point of view as well. Also, you find out what happened. One year’s prophecy becomes the next year’s certainty, and the year after that, its history. …We’re always looking over our shoulders, wondering why we missed the clues that seem so obvious to us in retrospect.”

Margaret Atwood
Writing with Intent

I have lost many days of writing in my life. Days lost due to illness and the full-time job of doctors visits, which places its vocational demand on people with chronic conditions. Days lost to childrearing and chickenpox, teacher in-service days, and three day weekends in honor of often obscure holidays. And of course, days lost to plain old lack of discipline when I’ve been distracted by the allure of the thrift shop, the novel, or even my own soft pillow.

In the ebb of all these lost hours, I find myself fretful and worn – sorry for the delay and the words lost to time and memory. There was that great piece about Polyphonic Spree and John Lennon that I sketched in my head on 9/11, and mentally expand while I sat by the Imagine memorial in Central Park. There was the bit about postmodern Judaism that slipped through my mind at the Matiiyahu concert. Oh, and that whole series that of articles that came to mind while I read Pornified last Spring. Where did those pieces go? Is it possible to retrieve them? Has their time passed me by?

I’m thinking of writing some reviews and so I’ve been reading Margaret Atwood’s past book reviews to get a feel for this kind of writing. Her collection of non-fiction work in Writing with Intent is humorous and witty and surprisingly inspiring. (I usually find more inspiration in fiction than in fact.) In her introduction she talks about writing—and by extension, living – in time. She reminds us that we cannot move chess pieces that have already been placed, and although we might have some hint at what is coming, we cannot know with certainty what play will unfold next. I have been pridefully walking about thinking that I have learned to be present, to live in the “now.” And while my yogi, MJ, has taught me how to breathe and move in the present, it is Margaret who is showing me how to work and write in the present as well. I want to discover in this today how to write prophecy as well as certainty – even, perhaps, to try my hand at history. I want to produce, even if what emerges never becomes polished, published, or certainly not perfect. I want to show up at the page. I want to mourn less and capture more.
Again, Margaret Atwood:

“When you say that titles of your books out loud, people sometimes hear them wrong. I’ve seen Bluebeard’s Egg become Bluebird’s Egg, The Handmaid’s Tale become the Handmaiden’s Tale, Oryx and Crake become Onyx and Crake. When I told someone this book was called Writing with Intent, she said, “Writing in tents? How do you mean?” But this writing has sometimes been done in tents or in their equivalent: provisional shelters with just enough light to see by, and just enough heat to make it possible to get on with the job.”

Ah, and isn’t this how it really is, the artists life? We often must apply much intent and intensity to carve out the time and space for creating. That space is so often less that what we had hoped for or thought we needed. The timing isn’t always what we had planned or felt we, or our work, deserved. But there is, more often than not, provision for the task – light enough to see by and just enough heat to make it possible to get on with the job.

So today, with less time than I had hoped and less internal heat and passion that I had once had, I come to the page and get on with the job.