words, words, words

Here's how it works:

You add up the words, string together some phrases. All in an attempt to create some coherence, a form of narrative, a why this has happened. The beginning and ending are firmly in place. But, it's the getting from one point to another that matters. We exist in our stories.

After particularly harrowing experiences, my mother used to tell me, "but, think of how you'll tell it."

Good advice, indeed.

I spoke to an editor with whom I work yesterday. She's editing a project that started out online but is now becoming a printed book. Apparently, one of the people featured within its pages decided to opt out of the latter version. The idea of appearing in print was too frightening for him, felt too permanent.

It was refreshing to realize that these things do matter, that there is still some power in the written word.

I say I do it for myself, but, really, this is why I write.

When I do so, that is.

I'm still working on the writing itself. It's something that comes with time and practice. A little like learning to drive, I suppose.

And, I remember those days all too well, perhaps because they went on far longer than was necessary (or not nearly long enough, depending on who you ask). Just me and my father in the empty parking lots of Long Island, all of them covered with a thin dust of snow. His mounting frustration as I drove through the spots, taking short cuts. The constant refrain being, "do you know how many parked cars you would've just hit?"

Yes, but there were none there.

It's hard to argue against emptiness.

So, I'd wait, still in the driver's seat, staring into the warning on the side view mirror —objects are closer than they appear —until he told me to switch seats so that he could drive back home, the car's tires making strange patterns in the powder, tracing our path back.