Paul LaFarge—I don’t know how it is for you, but each time I sit down to write something, I feel like I’m crossing over some kind of distance, between the ordinary self that does laundry and teaches classes and tries to keep up with the bills, and this other self where writing happens. The thing I’m most afraid of, and I fear it more or less constantly, is that the distance will increase to the point where I can’t cross it. I imagine this happening in stages: one day I put on my sturdy shoes and head off towards writing, but it’s so far away that I’m exhausted by the time I get there. The next time I don’t make it at all. I blame my shoes, my pack, my energy bars. I set off again, but it’s really too far. Eventually I don’t go out. I sit by the window, looking across the valley at a wall of clouds. Was writing over there, somewhere? I look wistfully at my shoes. Then the clouds move away, and I see my writing self, shining distinctly in the late afternoon sun. It looks bigger than I remember it—a forbidden city, built by a people whose name I’ve forgotten, although I read something about them, somewhere . . . . |
