I will be here when I need me

We write of the effects of time on the mind, especially the writer’s mind; that one may remember or misremember vividly the minutiae and let the plot escape one over time. That a turn of phrase may be all that remains. That childhood cannot easily be written. Time, as a topic, is seductive. It plays tricks, and it misdirects; if time does one thing, it is this: time eludes.

Space, by contrast, is too commonplace to merit much discussion. Space, we feel, simply is, while time is a necessary construct of the mind as it orders the world, a flawed implement at best. But the effects of space on the writer are suggestive of a deeper significance. Expatriated writers – here we note with some regard Borges in Italy and England, Papa in Paris, Powers in Belgium, F. Scott anywhere – write with verve and poignancy the depths of which are hardly hinted at in earlier works.

Perhaps we are trained in it, knowing as we do that when the thousand ships return, our sons will be grown, and strange men will pursue our wives with varying degrees of success. It is worth mentioning also that time, cunning beggar that he is, plays a role in space the converse of which cannot also be true: every different space is also a different time.

The point being, I have somehow tied off my threads and set to rest a lot of insistent ghosts before moving here. The end of the summer was a series of closures, one after another, and I saw each of them as far as it would go. I have ended a chapter, closed a book, said goodbye in ways I had never said goodbye before. Now I begin a new work.

Only — no threads emerge. I have nothing to spin, no tales, no concerns, no anxieties. My summer of tragedy needed only for me to wait it out. My own dramas have settled neatly into place: the one an abrupt end and the other a slow, years-long simmer. It is hard work, but I am at rest. Perhaps the seeds of story will begin to sprout in this new ground if I give them time; perhaps in a week it will become evident that things are not so fine as they seem now; perhaps a lot of things.

It seems singularly ungrateful to lament one’s peace and good fortune, and I do not wish to do so. However, I wish neither to bore you, dear readers, with the mundanities of student life, nor to leave you with an abrupt ending to my words. At the beginning of the summer, I gave my words up for the study of law, and when I did, they returned with a vengeance. Now that the study of law is upon me, my words are gone again, and it is only for me to have faith that they will return when I need them. For now, apparently, I do not need them.

gauche
08 Sep 05