On writing

These blogs have become bloated and bogged with minutea, but at least I am trying to keep them free of overblown rhetoric.

For me, nothing passes the time better than writing, so with lots of travel, there are empty hours to fill in bus terminals and airplane middle seats.

But writing is also a mind dump- it calms me down and helps me clarify my thoughts.

But it also tampers with experience and reality. Something happens to you. The event itself changes you, and it is inprinted in a certain way. But when you remember it, your mind emphasizes certain parts, mutes others, and spins and edits it. When I record a memory in words, I must articulate feelings, senses, impressions, plus the background overlay of my own mental state at the time. All of this must be edited down, compressed, put into words which have themselves particular meanings and connotations different from how other people may shade the same word. When I articulate, the force of words re-writes and hardens my own memories, like I am making a photocopy of a photograph of a cloud.

To articulate a memory is to alter it, but for me, it is worth it to gain the use of the memory through repetition. I have to remember the event, write it, and then often I read what I have written, giving me an additional three times to process this event and see how it fits into the larger narrative.