6.5 Ways of Looking at a Blinking Cursor

1.

I haven’t concentrated on writing something creative and emotional in years, so it should come as no surprise to all my writer-ly friends that I am totally shocked by how traumatically difficult it is. The last time I wrote this much was during a fellowship I did in college. I worked with the wonderful (and wonderfully eccentric) American poet, Carolyn Kizer. One evening that summer, as we sat out on someone’s front porch drinking red wine, she told us what the writing world needs is less students and more bohemians.

She flips her wildly curly hair and with wine wantonly swirling in her glass says, “What you need to do is, you need to get a typewriter. And go rent a room in Greece.” She looks around at the over-eager students surrounding her and barks at us, “You should all be living out of beat up suitcases!” What I did was just the opposite—I got good internships, I worked in publishing, I decided to save the world and then I got a couple of marginally useful degrees.

So… I am now renting a room in Istanbul (sorry Nopulos family, nothing personal) and regularly staring at the blinking cursor of my friend cum confidante: my laptop. Welcome to the new Bohemia. We are over-educated, under-employed or mis-employed, and decidedly not lugging around typewriters. Today the most creative people I know are either 1. lawyers, 2. hapless PhD students or 3. waxing eyebrows.

2.

Mete’s advice this week… After I sent him a desperate text message: “Please tell me we can start drinking soon. This book is going to kill me.”

He calls me back, “Listen, just stop writing. Just stop. You know, when the sun explodes, you know what’s going to happen? All the paper in all the books is going to be the first thing to burn up. So don’t worry about it. You and Kant will finally have something in common.” He laughs.

Okay, I had that coming.

3.

I just read Bird by Bird, a book about writing by the very funny Anne Lamott. I’m sure you’ve all read it and I have no idea why it took me so long to get to it. I probably shouldn’t steal lines from my ex (a man who also had a completely irrational hatred of Florida), but alas, it’s the best excuse I have for avoiding the book: once we were in a women’s literature course in college and he was asked (as one of the token men) to explain why he doesn’t read much women’s lit. With his standard slouch and unblinking cynicism he replies, “I don’t know. I don’t really dig books with birds on the cover.”

So there you have it. A woman slaves away to record her most valuable thoughts about writing and the editor puts a bird on the cover.

4.

I was totally engrossed in Bird by Bird when I arrived at Volkan’s house. Some friends of his are filming a short movie in his apartment. It was surreal. Suddenly his average apartment was a “set”, a place where important, recordable events can take place. I’m sitting there reading, Volkan and a friend are playing video games and meanwhile, three marginally sketchy guys are buzzing around discussing the best angles, where to put the lights, how to rearrange the furniture. Filming was planned to begin the next day.

As I watched them and pretended not to feel like a misplaced prop, I thought, “Oh shit, this is my life.” Here is my new image of God, this director: chain-smoking, sweaty, an earring in his left ear, snooping around my life with a haphazard, but apparently loyal staff. I imagine him saying, “Is there any way we can make this place darker? How about some rain? And somebody get the narcissistic ex-boyfriend on the phone! I’m ready to shoot her break-down.”

For all but a few of my most well-adjusted friends, this is a perfect metaphor for their lives and the universally terrifying experience of stumbling through our 20’s and 30’s. I feel like I’ve just become the unwitting star of a low-budget foreign film. As per my usual arrangement with God, I can’t seem to tell if it’s a comedy or a tragedy. Most of the time, I’m not even sure I’m in the right movie.

I laughed when they finally sat down to smoke and the director exclaims, in perfect English, “Where are the fucking scripts?” Yes, I thought. Where are the fucking scripts?

5.

Once upon a time, I worked as an intern for a small publisher of literature and spent all day reading through stacks of unsolicited manuscripts. They were always accompanied by letters with desperate and melodramatic opening lines, “Dear Editor, Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if Elvis had never died? This is the book for you!” As a result of this experience, I have an acute sense of how many people in the world are writing.

My in-box was always full. I began to see manuscripts everywhere. I dreamt of them—falling out of kitchen cupboards, stacked in front of televisions, in every pocket and briefcase and purse across America. Unfortunately, knowing how many people are writing has done little to dissuade me from my own work. To the contrary, I find it perversely heartening.

As my friend John often says, here’s the thing. Some people can’t seem to stop writing. I am one of them. In my mind, every letter of rejection that I sent was a cosmic stamp-of-approval. I wanted the letter to say, “I know it doesn’t matter how many times we say, ‘No.’ You couldn’t stop writing even if you wanted to. Send more.” I imagined people posting my note above their typewriters; the physical actualization of a life spent willfully following their bliss, futile or not.

Lamott says, “Take the attitude that what you’re thinking and feeling is valuable stuff, and then be naïve enough to get it all down on paper.” Well, when you put it that way…

6.

Whenever my own neuroses begin to seem both unique and insurmountable, or I forget which airport I’m in (a surprisingly similar feeling), I think of this one-act play by Dorothy Parker:

It’s 1940-something and a young newlywed couple boards a train, presumably on their way to their honeymoon. They hang their coats. She adjusts her hat. He looks at her and she looks back. Some minutes pass. Finally, the silence is broken.

“Well, here we are,” she says.
“Yes. Here we are, aren’t we?” he replies.

6.5

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

Yeah, well, we can’t all be Wallace Stevens, now can we?

Next week: my mother and my sister are in Istanbul. Yup. More than one friend has generously suggested my sister can stay at his place. Right. Believe me guys, I’ve never even seen Midnight Express… I will hurt you.

Sending love (and impolite threats of violence), em