Words chalked in da Vinci's red

Instead of leaving the apartment to find a suitable writing venue, I sat down and read a poetry novel from beginning to end. Often I need to read before I can write.

In poetry and loose prose, Persuasion for a Mathematician tackles the question "Why live?" The collection opens with a short series of poems dedicated to personal losses; then it moves into a dialectical (and existential) exchange between a poet and a mathematician about suicide, and then a collection of poems on Leonardo da Vinci set on opposing pages to the plain words of a lonely, insulated woman who cleans the houses of bankers and scholars.

Words chalked in da Vinci's red. I will need to read it again and, perhaps, again.

30 December 2003, 16:12

Wet

Rain has soaked everything into grey. Buildings and streets and bridges have redrawn themselves in charcoal onto a damp canvas, edges smudged into abstaction. There has been no snow this Christmas. No winterland of white, no crackling cold. For the past week there has been just sometimes-sun, dirty clouds, and a few lashings of rain.

This drizzled day leaves me with wet jeans, curled notebook edges, and an impressionistic sketch of the city where I live and sometimes write.

29 December 2003, 17:12

Returning

Returning is more difficult than I imagined. Many times I brought fingers to keys and waited for the words to flow out. But nothing seemed important enough to be committed to pixels. Strangely I have on a few occasions found myself with an actual writing instrument in my hand, leaking ink onto paper in great globs. I have spent time in coffee shops watching people and watching myself scratch out hundreds of black words in barely legible script. Most of it is absolute garbage, but some bits are salvageable. Some words will may even find a more permanent home.

Regardless, I am writing.

I stopped writing here because I had lost my sense of purpose. I may just have found it again, frazzled head plunged into the sand, body quivering and cowering in the cold air. It may need some coaxing, yet.

28 December 2003, 21:12