I am leaning back against the chair as I stare at the screen, watching each word emerge as I type. There is a light humming sound from the center room of our flat, from the heater that helps keep this place warm in cold months. There is a louder though intermittent sound of passing cars out on the street. Many of them are, no doubt, returning home for the evening. When I take a deep breath, the smell from the oil of cooking home fries is still in my nose. Their taste is still vaguely in my mouth, and the satisfaction from them fills my tummy. I take the final gulp of a seltzer water can I started earlier.
My computer reads “Tue 6:00pm” on the upper right corner. I am about forty minutes away from leaving for my comedy improvisation class I take on Tuesday nights. I think to myself, “Oh god! this is hard!” as I consider the next line of this blog post, which features a totally descriptive approach. This is something I did several weeks ago as well. Tonight this method occurs to me as tedious and challenging. “Yet it is worthwhile!” a part of me reassures myself.
We shall see.
I take a deep breath, leaning against aforementioned chair. I had folded it up to put a piano bench here instead for last night’s piano class. After all, my computer desk is also a piano keyboard! Before starting this post, I set the chair back up, as I prefer to use a chair with a back to it for computing. Obviously, a piano bench has no back to it.
I Facebook-message a couple people about a project I am working on, suggesting we have another creative brainstorming meeting. I love creative brainstorming. Meanwhile, outside a steady “whoosh” of cars on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. There’s a bassy sound of music coming from this one.
The words are not flowing quickly. I feel impatient. Perhaps I am expecting too much of myself in this descriptive post. I am fidgety, eager to get this “over with,” yet a bit resistant to actually doing the work. It occurs to me that this experience suggests perfectionism or expectations that may be too high. “It is only a blog post, what do you expect, a novel?” I query my mind, but get no satisfying response.
The top right of the screen now says “Tue 6:14 PM.” Wow. A few short paragraphs took 14 minutes to write. What the hell?! The pointless indignation of being in your own way. “You don’t do enough descriptive writing. This is good for you,” whips back a know-it-all part of me. Grr.
I notice more cars passing outside but figure that bringing this up for the third time in this post might not be benefiting it. I think I am stalling. I imagine I have nothing more worthwhile to write about. This format makes me a little nervous, for reasons I can’t explain. Am I this resistant to the here and now? Or do I just resist writing about it?
Outside, more cars pass, each one bored by my attempts to achieve something “literary.” “Man, this is hard,” I think once again. “I’m so much better at describing my inner thoughts!”
“That’s why you need to practice doing this!” My own mind mercilessly betrays me.
“Tues 6:22 PM” reads the upper right-hand of the screen. I feel very much like a kid sitting at his desk waiting for the bell to ring. When is recess? Haven’t I done enough?
Have you said what you wanted to say?
I don’t know. I don’t know what I wanted to say. I just wanted to describe the present moment.
And how did that go?
It was painstaking. Gulp.