The Cringe

Writing seems to me to be, at best, an embarrassing endeavor. First I come up with an idea that feels like it’s really something. It seems to be making a connection that’s new. Maybe it makes me see the familiar in a fresh way or it deepens my understanding of it. 

I say “I come up with it,” but I could just as truthfully tell you that the idea just happens upon me. I have no more control of it than a patch of ground has over a parachuter falling out of the sky to land on it.

But regardless. An idea occurs. And I get excited. I write it down. Or try to. And so begins the long degradation from a perfect idea lodged in my head like a ship in a bottle to what I end up posting, publishing, performing, or otherwise sharing with the rest of the world. A failed imitation of the nautical vessel trapped in my brain soon becomes a sun-bleached wreck on the beach.

This post, probably

I try to write it and I do succeed in writing something. But words soon reveal themselves to be the frauds that they are, just twisted lines that can only point to the concept itself. 

Nevertheless, I persist. I write it out. After about 214 words I wonder what it is I’m really trying to say. My confidence falters. It feels like either what I’m getting at is so simple and obvious it doesn’t need to be said, or it’s so deep and complicated I’m in over my head. To push the sea simile (seamile?) too far: I can’t tell if I’m standing in a puddle or drowning in the ocean but either way, here’s a broken paddleboat

And then I just want to stop. 

And I often do! But if I don’t finish before I take a long break then any hope I had of getting the thing out whole is probably lost. So I force myself to finish. At least get to a place that feels like an ending.

And then. . . it’s awful. It’s an awful thing that is pointless and I hate it. But it’s my baby and I love it. So I take my ugly boat-baby and I make it presentable to the world. I scrub its little face and swab its deck and stuff it into a cute onesie festooned with anchors. I take it outside for the whole world to react to and pray to all the gods I don’t believe in that my contribution to the world won’t get fussy or list too much. Won’t cry, take on water, or in any way leak. I don’t want anything to call too much attention to what I made. Because when it comes down to it, writing is a confusing, conflatorious, ridiculously embarrassing endeavor.

But if I don’t love it, who will?