To write, to be able to write, what does it mean? It means spending long hours dreaming before a white page, scribbling unconciously, letting your pen play round a blot of ink and nibble at a half-formed word, scratching it, making it bristle with darts and adorning it with antennae and paws until it loses all resemblance to a legible word and turns into a fantastic insect or a fluttering creature half butterfly, half fairy.

To write is to sit and stare, hypnotised, at the reflection of the window in the silver ink-stand, to feel the divine fever mounting to one's cheeks and forehead while the hand that writes grows blissfully numb upon the paper. It also means idle hours curled up in the hollow of the divan, and then the orgy of inspiration from which one emerges stupefied and aching all over, but already recompensed and laden with treasures that one unloads slowly on to the virgin page in the little round pool of light under the lamp.

To write is to pour one's innermost self passionately upon the tempting paper, at such frantic speed that sometimes one's hand struggles and rebels, overdriven by the impatient god who guides it--and to find, next day, in place of the golden bough that bloomed miraculously in that dazzling hour, a withered bramble and a stunted flower.

To write is the joy and torment of the idle. Oh to write! From time to time I feel a need, sharp as a thirst in summer, to note and to describe. And then I take up my pen again and attempt the perilous and elusive task of seizing and pinning down, under its flexible double-pointed nib, the many-hued, fugitive, thrilling adjective... The attack does not last long; it is but the itching of an old scar.

And...

It is true that departures sadden and exhilarate me, and whatever I pass through -- new countries, skies pure or cloudy, seas under rain the colour of a grey pearl -- something of myself catches on it and clings so passionately that I feel as though I were leaving behind me a thousand little phantoms in my image, rocked on the waves, cradled in the leaves, scattered among the clouds. But does not a last little phantom, more like me than any of the others, remain sitting in my chimney corner, lost in a dream and as good as gold as it bends over a book which it forgets to open?

Sometimes the academic in me closes shop, hoping the words will just speak for themselves.

Labels: commonplace book, quotation

My last two posts have been about rain, so I shouldn't start this one by describing the coziness of pyjamas, soft light, hot tea, fuzzy socks, and the smell of catalog pages during a storm.

Williams-Sonoma, Ballard Designs, Pottery Barn, and Levenger are lulling me into an alternate universe where I have the luxury for significant concerns about Wall Art, suede accessories, candle scones, and canister sets; a Southern Living-inspired, Martha Stewart-led world of colour schemes and carpet rugs; where I can nonchalantly but seriously consider selecting my purchases from among pages announcing "The Granada Collection," "Simple Elegance, Superior Function," "3 x 5 Organization Is Just a Zip Away," "Productive Deskscapes Can Inspire, Too," and "A Protective Showcase For Your Pens." These, by the way, from a catalog (catalogue -- it just looks better) that claims to offer "Tools for Serious Readers," because, of course, those of us spending our lives reading are not quite dedicated enough, not quite committed to our profession, without our "Timeless Designs Handcrafted In Top-Quality Leather." How can I really be a serious reader without a Leather Task Card Organizer Box with Tabs for $58? How can my class notes be thorough if they're not taken in my Notabilia Notebook with Leather Cover ($94)?

Yeah, I'm poking fun, but more at myself than at the magazines. I could easily be lured by a Notabilia notebook, or, more to the point, (switching catalogs), by an All-Clad Waffler, an azure blue Le Creuset, or a stainless-steel rolling mincer (how have I lived without it?) I sip my orange tea and imagine a life in which I place multi-coloured stick-its (probably from their little leather holder -- but that might be going one step too far) in the pages of my Williams-Sonoma catalog with the strict intension of following up at the store next week to make my selections.

Perhaps the reality wouldn't be quite as relished as the dream. At least, I probably wouldn't appreciate the smell of the pages so much.