I think the key to writing well is in the simplicity of memory. In every book I have loved, the memories of the protagonist captivate me. I wonder about all the little memories in stories. They seem to spring up like tiny flowers in the cracks on the sidewalk. Their uselessness are what make them so believable. Their complete lack of direction are what make them beautiful. It’s always the things that seem insignificant in the moment that stick to your heart the most, and I do think that while not everyone is consciously aware of the intense beauty of memory, they are dreadfully important.
If somehow I could find a way to do this, I would be a great writer. Everyone can fall in love with a romanticized memory (unless I am the only one who thinks so, or that this notion is already so painfully obvious and I’m taking credit for something a ten year old could do). I do think (maybe not confidently) that I have a strong memory. I can remember hundreds of tiny and incredibly vivid things that happened to me as a child. It’s nice, but it also haunts me that I may not be able to remember this very moment, or any of the things that I experience day to day. Life is constantly slipping through my fingers and one day when I am old I will look down at my empty hands and remember almost nothing. Perhaps that’s why the elderly seem so at peace. Staring ahead of them at nothing as if they were actually staring at a lily in a pond. Maybe they can’t recall how much better and full of life they used to be. Because they just don’t remember life at all. I’m very afraid of growing old. I’m not sure if I’m more afraid of losing my memories one by one, or recalling it all and letting it consume me as I die idle and all alone. Anyway… I’m being overindulgent as I tend to be. This exceptional memory that I have might help me if I want to write. I’ll have to learn how to organize my brain. I’ll have to learn how to thicken my skin to this damn near insufferable nostalgia. I’m far more in love with the past than I could ever be with the present. I suppose that says a lot about me.
It’s not even that I could go back. I know better than that, my better reasoning keeps me marching forward. It’s just that I truly over-romanticize everything that ferments inside me for too long. I think about things until they become a part of me and embed themselves. It’s so much better than the cold and defeating world that I live in– a world so cold that my memories are the only thing that keep me from turning blue.
Girltown 