Welcome to rieblog!

in which I try to explain my long absence...

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So here we are, a month and a half after I last wrote, getting prepared to leave Latvia for a spell. What's been going on? Why no rieblog entries? It's not as if there hasn't been anything to write about, I suppose I just ran out of gas. I've been struggling to understand what makes me want to write and what makes writing awful. Not wanting to write is a visceral reaction akin to nausea. The idea of sitting down at the computer to write seems more than just futile but childish and an utter waste of time. When I'm not in the mood, just thinking about writing makes me wince. I see the word processing icon beckoning on my laptop, but the thought of opening in and being confronted with a document with the heading “untitled 1” is simply too much to bear. In my better moods, “untitled 1” is an invitation and an opportunity that reminds me of Laurie Anderson's observation: “It's blank, what have you got to lose?” These days, however, the blank screen looks like an ocean I've been invited to swim across. Even a few words on the page would serve as a landmark, something to hold on to, and here, only now, have I typed a paragraph that I can desperately cling to while I decide what to write next.

I suppose I'm learning the importance of momentum. Writing involves a lot of belief, not only in one's own ability to communicate, but also in the importance of doing so. Case in point: Baiba just asked “what are you doing?”, and I answered “nothing.” Well, that's not entirely true, is it? Momentum makes belief easier. When I see something on the page, I'm working on something. I'm getting back to work. The commitment has already been made. Looking at “untitled 1” is a very different experience. Without words on the page, I have to go to work, and each new document is the first day on the job. When you're new on the job, you always ask yourself the same questions: “Why am I here?”, “Am I wasting my time?”, “Is this the best I can do?” Now, with my teaching job, the answers are easy, I'm there because I need money and a Latvian residency permit. I certainly hope I can do better, but in the interim my teaching job will have to do. Writing is much different. No one pays me for it. Very few people read it. At this point, my reasons for writing are strictly personal, and therefore I can't say that it fulfills a practical end. I have to write because I believe writing is important, and on many days, that requires more confidence than I'm able to muster.

Seeing writing on the page helps. It's already the morning after I wrote the previous two paragraphs, and seeing them on the page is a comfort. I'm just back here to finish something. Today, I'm working on something. Better yet, I'm finishing something. The sun is streaming through the window and outside another perfect Latvian spring day is rolling by. I have watched the neighborhood turn suddenly green over the past few weeks from our fourth floor window. It's a perfect perch from which to watch the comings and goings of the street. The apartment is quiet. It's a perfect place to write, but I haven't been doing it. Now, finally, egged on by guilt, or boredom (never underestimate the curative powers of boredom) I am at it again: starting over, trying to figure it out. It gives me little pleasure, but I know I will take pleasure in having written, if not this, than something I may write soon. Perhaps that's why writing is important: writing creates an avenue to the future for those of us whose futures are far from clear. I can write my way into the future, leaving a record of how I got there in my past. At this juncture, there appears to be no other way forward.