2.25.2012

two hundred. eleven.

I think of what to write and how to write it.
Where did I read to: Write what is urgent?
So I wonder what that means. 
What is urgent?
There are things that are pressing. There is a story I'm trying to finish and wishing it would just finish itself. Not all of it is urgent though. You know? Time is pressing, rather. I know you've got to just do it, just shove at the bits that aren't urgent, wrestle them around until they stay put. There's writing to be done that doesn't always feel important, but if you set feelings aside for long enough you might find there's an importance to it after all. 

Some things seem urgent in moments, but only to me.
Those moments when I say to myself
This must be written. 
Of course it's not always gold, it's often rubbish. But I have to write it out nonetheless.  
It seemed urgent to remember my dogs and their snowy faces when they came in from outside this morning, the way they shook and snuffled it all over the floor in our basement. I saw their faces and wonder how I would write it. I wondered why I would.
Stories & thoughts seem urgent at times. As soon as it happens I rush to jot it down, on napkins, on receipt paper, on coffee filters, in a notebook. The random scraps I have hanging about everywhere is appalling. My purse is always full of these bits: from work, from driving, from conversations.
Why?
The lady who came in to the coffeeshop this week, she'd had a stroke a while back and now has trouble with some words. She is the tiniest lady you'll ever see, light blue eyes that almost look blind, they look past you at times with that strange glow.
She equates size with age when ordering. That day, she ordered a caramel latte, the oldest size.
So we gave her the biggest.
There was an urgency to this moment. Her adorable giggle as she held her hand over her mouth and corrected her mistake, embarrassed at the way her brain works now.
But why?
It did seem important, in any case, and here it is, I've told you.
I wonder at journaling, at updates and the details of a life lived, and I wonder if there is/should be an urgency to that.
[Anyhow, I've been awful at journaling recently.]

What else seems urgent?
What do we neglect when it does?
I think it's telling. 

2 comments:

Taralyn Rose said...

It seemed important to day to write how happy I am - one day I'll be old and have 100 cares - but now so much seems possible. And I'd like to always remember how happy I was.

Thanks for the reminder :-)

Faith said...

Once, I saw a blackbird sitting on a security camera while I was stopped at a red light, and for some reason I just had to write it down (a story idea did spring from it eventually). I still have the handy facial blotting paper I wrote it on. Because I'm just prepared like that. :)