Even though I (lightly, casually, informally) consider myself a writer, there are a good many things I have trouble writing about. I have trouble keeping a diary in a serious way, in the way that you are supposed to. I remember buying a traditional tiny pink diary complete with tiny lock and tiny key at a gift shop in South Dakota. Inside, each page was dated. I wrote in it sporadically during the week of that vacation, but never again. I couldn’t make the commitment.
When I do try to do this (as I have many times in my life, because it’s one of the first things anyone tells you to do when you tell them you’re considering a career in anything creative or artistic), it sounds like a laundry list. This is because I could not be less interested in the daily events of my life. I realize that the end goal is not the daily writing itself but that the ACT of writing will make me better, despite the quality of the work produced in the process, and that perhaps when I look back in weeks, months, years, there will be something usable, or something that will link to something else which will link to…and then I’ll have a decent piece of writing.
I have been in New York for 4 days and my intention upon planning this trip was to keep a travel journal. I haven’t. I’ve amassed a bizarre amount of media (last night I took a video of these strange ceiling fans and recorded Laura and myself beatboxing ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ after we polished off a bottle of wine), but these are the first words I’ve written since I landed that are not on my Twitter feed. Pathetic. So here goes.
Something I have realized this week is that I am terrible at predicting my own reactions to things. Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was surreal. 30 Rockafeller Center felt like entering a church. Yankee Stadium made my heart ache. None of these reactions were shocking, but I couldn’t have described them to you before I experienced them is I guess what I’m saying.
It’s September 11th and I am in New York City for the first time. Right now I am tucked away in Laura and Jesse’s guest room in Brooklyn, but later I think we’ll go to Ground Zero because it feels wrong to me not to. I will not try to guess how it will feel.
