Ernest Hemingway once said that writing is no more than sitting down to a typewriter and bleeding.
I always kind of loved this quote. It made something I loved seem so easy, so raw and real. Like maybe this post would be written with my blue veins -- personal and straight from the heart. For some weird reason that idea always seemed kind of dramatic and tragic. And okay, therefore cool.
When I was growing up, my dad never let me play around with his computers. They were complicated and set up for his work, and my little destructive, technologically-incompetent mind...well, you see why. But as a substitute form of entertainment he pulled from the dark, cavernous recesses of our basement an ancient, heavy, iron and ink typewriter.
The sad part about this post is that most of you will be jealous. Like "oh that's so vintage and cool!" No kids, when I dutifully pounded out story after story on that beast and proudly showed my friends the staple-bound work the most common response was, "why didn't you just use the computer?"
But in a complicated blender of love and hate for the old machine, I found bleeding on its vintage keys slightly harder than Hemingway made it sound. The ink ribbon near-dry required the little finger to pound each key three or four times, and an inability to spell the English language left the world with the neigh-unintelligible ramblings of an over-active, fourth-grade mind.
But I'm staring at a subtly glowing screen in this chilly, dark, cavernous basement and find computer keys little easier to bleed on. I hate Hemingway; I hate his characters, and I have yet to find a Hemingway story that doesn't fill me with urges to join a feminist movement and maybe brush my teeth. But I envy his ability to bleed. So for now I sit in the dark limbo of writer's block.
It's not that I have nothing to say, but I have no words with which to say it. It's not that my heart broke down, but my veins seem to be running on fumes. More and more my evenings seem to gather themselves into this corner where I can brood and let Ben Folds say everything for me. And it's cold out there. And it's dark in here. And maybe I need to put on a sweater, but maybe I'm holding out for spring. And maybe the sun will help melt this frozen state I'm in, or maybe I need to spend spring break in Florida like everyone else. But Jon Foreman told me a few years ago that you can never escape yourself no matter how far you run, but maybe you should get up and move anyway. And you know, Jon, I'm trying, but it would be nice if someone could please unpause my life, because that's the biggest road block in my path to moving on.
Or maybe that's just the writer's block.
Either way I think I'll start by digging out that typewriter; apparently these days it's vintage and cool.
