I am with Anaïs Nin; writing is intrinsically linked to flow. There is no blockage that cannot be cured by visiting a body of water. By submerging.
I lie in a hot bath until words are pouring from me and I can stand it no more.
I wrote much of Mind in the Gap in the bath. I’d sit side on, legs crossed, arms over the edge; draft and a pen on a makeshift desk.
Swans [waterbirds] playing on loop.
Fitting, perhaps, that my unfinished novels The Enlightenment Machine and Oneiroscope both begin in water. In one, a drowning; in the other, a birth.
I’ve noticed more fragmentary novels appearing. Patchworks of small, patterned pieces – collages of torn magazines – that are connected sometimes in clever ways, often by nothing more than their being in the same book. It mirrors, perhaps, the style of social media consumption.
Each piece a wave, a movement. The book, a sea.
An island, then. A Holm [home]. A cave made from philosophy and literature, lit by a lantern.
The light is objective reality as it is right now, seen through our [subjective] eyes. On the peripheries things become foggy, less certain. Mind full of chatter and circular references. Thoughts you understand may spiral to hell. The further out [into the darkness] you go, the more likely you are to bump into an archetype. Things make more sense then. The story returns, only this time it is the eternal story of the collective.
The outer objective world and the inner objective world. Which is bigger?
[A spinning torus.]
I never seem to be quite what people expect. I am a white-collar worker. I hold no creative degree, but I have tirelessly studied literature, art, philosophy, mysticism. I am diagnosed with two mental disorders, but I am high-functioning so you may never notice. I can write, but I don’t always speak well. I get nervous around new people, groups of people, people I respect. I am always an imposter, but I am capable nevertheless.
I’ve been keeping a list of things I never tweeted. Things I thought I needed to say on social media, but in the end I only had to say to myself.
Anaïs Nin was her own psychotherapy experiment. The diary, a tool. Her life whilst writing it, an art.
Header Image Credit: Jan Huber via Unsplash
C.R. Dudley 