My Whole Expanse I Cannot See…

A reader recently was good enough to write:

I’m unsubscribing your feed as your blogs have become boring and lethargic. I understand your predicament, but if you are going to blog, please make it worth your readers time.

If I’m boring, quit reading. I’m not trying to be boring, I’ll quit eventually, I’m sure. Still, if you can’t stand me anymore, go ahead and unsubscribe my RSS or do whatever you have to do.

So, I’m trying to post more, I’m making a concerted effort. Really, I’m making an effort to set life right again. When life feels good, the writing follows. The last few months have not been stellar. Honestly, it’s been more than a few months. I’m ultimately responsible for my life and making it comfortable, it just gets exhausting when things don’t go right for a long enough stretch. Depression sets in, which really doesn’t help make anything turn good again, it just feeds the slump.

I’m waking up, I think. I’m trying harder, at least.

So, I listen to the New Yorker: Fiction Podcast. Every month, a writer from today chooses a story to read that was previously published in the New Yorker, then there’s a discussion about the story. I’ve been listening for awhile, but the one story that really sticks out for me is Day-Old Baby Rats by Julie Hayden, published in 1972. It’s a short-story about a day in the life of a young woman in New York City. She’s an alcoholic, we’re there for her first drink in the morning, we see the city through her eyes, we hear her thoughts on everything she sees, and doesn’t see. It’s a gripping story of a woman, stricken by loneliness and anxiety, surrounded be millions of people.

Julie Hayden created a beautiful story in Day-Old Baby Rats, but Julie Hayden’s personal story is also sadly moving. She lived in New York City, had a story collection published, did regular writing for the New Yorker, she was doing things just about every writer aspires toward, definitely what I aspire toward. Still, today you can barely find a trace of her on google, by the time of her far too early death in 1981 her work was largely out of print, largely forgotten. Anxiety and phobia fueled her own alcoholism, she’d carry a flask, taking nips to numb her worries. Cancer ended her writing and her life. forever. She did these great things, but she still slipped and fell and ended badly. Her sad writing mirrored the sadness in her head, people found it beautiful, compelling, and yet for some reason, she died pretty much unremembered. It scares me how that can, and does happen. We all want our stories to end well, but sometimes, no matter what, they don’t. They just don’t.

I worry about my story.

Well, now that I know of her, I’ll remember Julie Hayden, and maybe this post might put her work in some new minds. It’s not much, but it’s something. She, and her work, are definitely worth remembering.

After thinking about it, I feel like I wasted the previous two posts. If I were quitting this blog, they’d be perfect. They’re just an obscure allusion to British TV that suited my mood at the time, still kind of do. I’m tired lately, but nothing’s finished, the blog isn’t finished. This blog probably won’t be finished until I am, that’s been the goal, anyway. This blog is supposed to reflect me, I’ve called it a live memoir, and I think I’ve been doing what I set out to do. Life isn’t always up, it’s a disturbing roller-coaster, and I think this blog is accurately reflecting my ride. Though, the roller-coaster metaphor is actually pretty stupid, it implies that we have absolutely no control over what happens while we’re breathing. We have free-will, just enough to make things interesting.

I have free-will, I have some control over my current… ennui. I have to get out of this.

It’s finished!

It’s not finished!

I could put down a bunch of words, but they wouldn’t do anything, or mean anything, or change anything. Or I could put down a bunch of violets. Violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets violets. Either way, it’s the same affect, no matter the words. Whatever I put down is passionless, pointless.