Reaction
I’ve been reading.
Damn.
In about 1995 I started writing a book. It never amounted to much - though I liked the premise, I could never get the story to go anywhere - so I put it aside. But lately I’ve been messing with some new words, and looking though some old stuff I’d written in the past. So I thought I’d dig out the files for the book and see if there were any roads there that I could retrace. Not at easy task - I had to find and download a program to convert the ancient WordPerfect files - but eventually I got everything open and readable.
Damn.
I had forgotten how much I loved writing this. And writing in general. It’s not easy, it’s often doesn’t come when you call, but… In 1995 all I wanted was to take a six month long trip down the backroads and write. And today, reading this makes me want the exact same thing. Our narrator, Katherine Wallsley (remember her?) is talking about traveling, and about her own art:
And that is something we have learned. That places - rib joints, fields, highway rest stops, stores that sell used records, motels with detached cabins, little lonely ponds down roads nobody seems to ever go down, drug stores with fountains, paths - have personalities too. There are ones you don’t have anything in common with, and therefore don’t really much want to be around, and then there are the ones you could spend years just sitting next to basking in their company. And it’s not an easy thing to define - this personality. (No different than being able to say what you like about a person I guess). It’s not just being a bit older. Its not just the people that might be there. Not the fact that there’s deer antlers or calendars from 1979 on the wall. If I had to point to one thing, I’d go back to that idea that somewhere, somehow, somebody loves them. Not just as a way to make a buck, but loves them and would cherish them regardless. And it occurs to me this has something to do with my art. The best art I’ve made is the art that I’ve thrown myself at, with a love for the fun and the freedom of just being there with it and playing with a friend. And without a regard for whether it will sell, or even whether anybody else will even like it, or even look at it. Maybe that’s why we’re all here.
Photo from this weekend:
