Far too long has it been since I last blogged. And I'm not sure why, maybe because I find writer's block is more like writer's dam, and the words that I want to say don't make sense to me, most of the time, and because I find inspiration harder and harder to find, hiding under some worthless rock somewhere. But nonetheless, muses come in the oddest shapes and sizes.
I put my ear to a large seashell last week, one bigger than my head, and I heard the waves of the seas moving, and it made me wonder if that's what it is like to be deaf, only hearing the ocean for the rest of your life. And I thought it sounded pretty peaceful, to be like that. Or if it is a low hum, like tires on a car going down the highway. I have found much peace in those two sounds, so I, of course, would not mind not hearing anything after that. But what of the mouths of your friends? And what does G-d sound like to someone who has never heard a voice before? Many questions, few answers, such is life.
I also went to a thrift store and a flea market last weekend, something I have not done in far too long. But this time, instead of digging through cheap shirts and finding old furniture to stock my apartment, I found myself saddened by the depravity of the business. I saw old portraits in frames of old families smiling. I witnessed an old man gathering old magazines, and I wondered who they were for. I saw a man buying earrings for his wife, old dangling things with rust on them, and he looked so proud at his purchase. I'm sure most of these things were items of the dead that they just could not take with them. And in the flea market, I saw sad worn out faces peddling small things, ripped off sunglasses and faded records. And they made no attempt to harass you to make you come and look at their treasures, just followed you with hungry eyes as you went down the aisle.
In times like these, it is so hard for me to find hope, to see the good in things, to see the sun. But I know in the markets of the poor there must be some wonderful little pearl, something that makes them go. And you can't hate the human spirit of determination, but maybe you can hate the way we go about doing them.
My book is almost done, it's taken two years. Chapters roll out like cement trucks, slow and lumbering, but I think it might be the best thing I have ever done.
