A Long Way, Baby.

You know that saying “A writer writes”? It’s an inspirational “quote” of course, to encourage wanna-be authors. It’s good advice for a square on Pinterest, but irritatingly simplistic logic. Like, as long as you manage to emit words in a form more concrete than thinking or speaking them, you qualify as a writer? The platform you choose and the quality of what you might say is totally unrelated – it’s subjective, relative, irrelevant even. A Writer, writes. A novel, a diary entry, a Facebook missive, 1000 million lists. And then there’s the compelling truth of the inverse. One who does not write anything, certainly is not a writer, right?

But what if you ARE a writer, who quit writing? What if you’re a former writer, an ex-writer, a recovering writer? I’m not talking about writer’s block here. I’m not talking about drawing a desperate blank while straining for the perfect words to materialize. I’m saying what if you gave up writing, what if you avoided it for years? Not scratched one word out on paper, not made one key-stroke to release the thoughts in your mind. Did you think you could delete those words, somehow flush them without so much as a backward glance into the toilet of your innermost dialogue? No honey, those words are all still there -  a hoarding situation in your brain - pushing and shoving into a mosh pit of truths and reflections held hostage.

Okay, it’s me, I’m the quitter, the hoarder. And yeah, I’m talking to myself, because…in order to survive, I stopped writing eight years ago.

***It was a matter of life or death.***

Up to that point, I think I had written at least something most days since handwriting lessons. My first diary was a gift on my 8th birthday. It was lavender with magical girly images – maybe princesses and wands and shit? I could check and report back since I still have it 35 years later, but it doesn’t matter what was ON it. What did matter was that it featured a pretty impressive lock, which I took very seriously, hiding the two keys in different places. I would lock and unlock it over and over, satisfied by the click; knowing that my insides were securely stashed on those pastel pages made me feel mysterious and important – and safe to spill my beans there. I was so hooked.

But that was only the first in a long string of journals, some $2 office-aisle notebooks, others covered in romantic floral fabrics or bound in buttery leather. A clever hiding spot served as security in place of that original lock. Early on I used them to make believe – I drew maps and kept clues to solve fantastic riddles, those were my Indiana Jedi days. Later, I used my pen to lament life’s woes –boys and bitches, a litany of family shit, cries for clarity (and period relief) to be delivered by a great unknown force; prayers, poems, plans and dreams. Did I write because I was a born writer – or was it a formed habit? Nature or nurture? Chicken or egg? And more pressing - did anything I was saying matter? I’m sure the answer is no. I just did it because I did it.

Speaking of habits, regular practices that are hard to give up…remember how I said life or death? Insert eye-roll. Sounds pretty dramatic, right?

Well, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I used to smoke. I was a smoker. People are surprised to learn that about me. Even when I smoked I hid it really well; I should have bought stock in Listerine strips and Bath and Body Works spray. First I hid it because it was forbidden; later because of shame for my stupid weakness. I smoked for twenty years of my life, starting with a pack of bowling alley Virginia Slims 100s vended on the sly from a machine at the age of 15. I won’t ever forget that first pack, taking an amateur drag and choking. Then another drag, and feeling the smoke spread around in my lungs, perfectly filling a void even as I recognized its presence. I can remember thinking, “this has been missing. THIS has been MISSING,” like an old friend I hadn’t seen in a lifetime, we were reunited like it was meant to be. Boy, I took to cigarettes like white on rice.

Soon they were a primary resource, as important to me as food and air. At first it was really a lot of work, since I was underage. I was always planning how I would get them – an older friend, the dwindling machines around town, my doctored learner’s permit – I became a real outlaw in the name of smoking.  

Cigarettes became such a part of me that they started to go hand in hand with lots of activities. Driving and smoking was a must. Drinking pretty much anything really, Juan Valdez and Jose Cuervo, all beverages required their presence. Tragically for me, cigarettes also went really well with the great loves of my life: being outside, reading and writing. Deck, coffee, Camels, Christie. Pibb, patio, Parliaments, pen. (alliterative apologies, I am so so sorry.) But just picture me, armed with a fistful of American Spirits, chain smoking my way through a Gothic novel assignment or another heart-broken ballad, inspired by that ballad guy with the chatty heart. This image defined me and the parts of the whole became so enmeshed, indistinguishable from each other, their colors swirled together and blended into the brownish tar that was slowly, deftly coating the lining of my lungs.

I was never without cigarettes and they were always there for me. Even much later, when I started hating them, truly wanting to quit them, cigarettes were there for me then too.

I quit smoking so many times I can’t count them...years of patches, gum, prescribed drugs, even hypnosis. None of that shit worked. I’d watch other people pick it up and put it down with relative ease, social smokers, but that was not me. I failed over and over. Until I didn’t fail.

What worked, finally, was just stopping. Oh, and changing almost every single habit in my life. All of them. Lol. To give up smoking, I had to basically give up all of my favorite things. Well, not dogs. And not food – but that’s a different essay.

I quit coffee, I quit cokes, I quit alcohol. There were people I couldn’t be around and succeed, so I quit them. I quit sitting on my porch (so very hard), I quit reading (me! (BA, English, UGA 2000) no books!). And I quit writing (full stop). A Quitter, quits. To absurdly simplify the very hardest thing I’ve ever done in this lifetime, that worked. That did it. I was no longer a smoker - so I’d saved my life (maybe). But who WAS I then?

That was eight years ago. In the meantime, I’ve done other things – focused my energy on incompatible or replacement behaviors - remember the dogs? And the food. They distracted me, satiated me - some. I focused forward on the new me without a backward glance, without an inward glance. And it was then that those hoarded words I mentioned earlier started to quietly collect in a corner.

…………………

For a long time, it felt like all those words were waiting on Pause…ll…frozen for a moment, like a tv show I walked away from to let a dog out to pee. But then the dog slipped the fence and ran off, and I ran after her and we wound up box car stow-aways on a cross-country train, and a full blown action/adventure/rom-com went down - and I almost forgot about my paused Netflix. I’ll press Play and write it all down soon, I’d tell myself. But the thoughts of smoking would rise up, waft in, h a n g languidly around a comfy patio chair, daring me. I’d push them away over and over along with the thoughts of writing, surely the words could wait. How long could I deny myself for fear of falling to my own weakness? Awhile longer.

And so the words have compounded logarithmically, they’ve swelled(to the)100, so far beyond that laundry pile in the corner now, they’ve morphed into a rancorous creature. Pause isn’t cutting it anymore. The latency is stale now and my Rancor has a life of its own, impatient for Play. An immense frantic creature of unprocessed journal entries, the middle lines of a poem un-started, prescient essays decrying the truths of the every-girl who might possibly relate to me. My Rancor contains just the start of thousands of short stories, all of which surely could have been NYT best-selling novels on their way to HBO screen-plays. Or, just cathartic yammering. Whatever its density, I mean destiny - it’s all there crowded inside me, lining the hallways of my guts, my chest, expanding into the back of my throat, my ears are popping with mixed-up metaphors. It’s so much that it’s hurting now, and I know it’s finally time. Time to sneer at the cigarette I still smoke expertly in my most vivid dreams, and just risk it. The porch, the coffee, the pen. 1500 out and counting.

Wish me luck. I’ve come a long way, baby.

PS, unsolicited PSA, from a place of ultimate love.

Smoking is so stupid. It stinks, it’s expensive, these days it’s really hard to do anywhere. Oh, and it forking kills you. That’s really the number one reason that smoking makes you dumb like I was. What a dumb way to die. I’m typically pretty much all the way live and let live, so it’s not lightly that I implore anyone to change something about themselves, but in case anyone still reading this is also actually still smoking, while incessantly thinking about stopping, maybe it will somehow help you to know that if I can do it, so can you. My soul recognizes your soul. xo, jess