A Distant Voice

I am having writers block and it's driving me bat shit crazy.  When I went out on disability in the middle of March I had high hopes of finishing I am an Old Soul.  I though, when Jack and Craig make it to San Francisco, that is when the words will really flow onto the page; well onto the computer screen.   I thought, I have lived here in the City since 1978.  I experienced the Castro in it's heyday.  I lived the life of Reilly in Polk Gulch when it was a full on gay neighborhood.  I got this.  I will write about what I know.  Isn't that what they always say; write about what you know.  I know this; but, as soon as Craig drove that blue '68 Skylark off the Bay Bridge, onto 101, then down the off ramp at Duboce and Mission, the words stopped.  Do you know how frustrating that is?  I've been working on this bloody novel for eight years; and, there are two more novels waiting in the wings for their day in the sun, not so patiently I might add.   Little Anna Thorensen, the little girl who lived through the 1906 earthquake and fire and Harriet Beecher-Stowe's son Fred, the one who disappeared here in the City just after the Civil War are already telling their stories, their voices competing with those of Jack and Craig's.  Some days it's like an out of control party in my head with everyone talking over each other and the surrounding din just so they have the chance to be heard.  I do ask them to quiet down and be patient while I sit in frustration feeling my angst.; and thank the Goddess they listen; well sometimes they listen.  What's equally frustrating for me though is that I know how this writing thing works.   If I can get out of the way and let the characters tell their story then everything will flow.  Lately though I have been wondering if Jack and Craig may be angry because I am attempting to overlay my experiences onto theirs.  Maybe, then maybe not.  Who's to know.  Either way they're not talking, at least not to me and probably not to each other.  That's why I decided to dig out my little mini recorder from the back of my bedside table.  I thought, OK, I'll drive from Duboce and Mission with the recorder on and let Jack and Craig speak their truth.  Maybe that will work.
My mini handheld recorder has been buried in my bedside drawer for years.  I can't even remember why I bought the damn thing.  I think I got it because I was planning to record lectures at State in my senior year but I'm not even sure if that was the reason.  Anyways, after thinking about digging it out for a few days I decided to just do it and at least see if it still worked.  I wasn't even sure if I had left batteries in it or not.  I though, correctly so I might add, I need to be careful when I open it up.  I've accidentally dealt with that corroded battery thing before when I opened the remote for my VCR/DVD.  No groans please.  Yes, I do still have a VCR/DVD combo AND another VCR in reserve stored away in the closet just in case; and yes, I still have blank T120 tapes in the closet too.  Now if you're done nitpicking......   Anyways, when I opened the remote battery acid went all over the place and it took a lot of time and patience to clean up the sofa, the remote, and more importantly me.  This is why I decided that this time I needed to be more careful.  So I took the recorder into the kitchen, spread paper towels down on the stove, and very gingerly opened the back of the mini recorder.   To my surprise I found the batteries in pristine condition.   I guess that tells you how long the recorder has sat unused in my bedside table.  Carefully, I removed the old batteries putting in the new.  While I was doing this I kept wondering if I would find a few old art history lectures or something maybe more interesting, not to say art history is not.  To me it is very interesting.  To you, probably not so much.  When I finally turned the recorder on I heard me reading from my journal about what survival tools I had as a child versus what tools I had as an adult.  I sat transfixed as I listened to every intonation of every syllable of every word.  It was me in the distant past speaking to me in the very real present.  I listened as I read passages from Survival to Recovery and more importantly the Promises.  I heard me speak of very tactile memories from my childhood, the particular sound the old window fan in the basement made as the slightly loose fan belt slapped against the cog wheel as it went round and round during the summer nights.  How the warm night air felt as if gently flowed in the window and over my body.  I heard me talk about how the boxes sounded on a Saturday morning as the delivery guy behind Chopyaks store slid them along a metal conveyor ladder, the barrel wheels spinning fast then gradually slowing again as each box slid into the basement.  I heard me telling me how to become grounded in those early days of my recovery in 2005, just one short year after my abuse memories started coming to the surface.  I had forgotten how hard those days were, how I never knew from one moment to the next whether I was going to slide deep into another anxiety attack.  I remember when I was called in for jury duty and how I had to leave the jury room so I could press my face and body against the cold stone walls, how I called friends in program for help just to hear a sane voice.  I remember laying in bed at night listing off the sounds I could hear; the refrigerator humming, a distant car horn, a train whistle echoing up from south of the slot, a garbage truck rumbling down the street just before dawn, saying to myself each time, that is reality.  In those early days I never knew what was reality and what was not.  A lot has changed in eleven years.  Sitting here on my bed I know what reality is and what is not.  I know my connection to my Higher Power is real, my connection to my own body is real, and that I am sane, well most of the time.  Thats why I consider myself to be an eccentric.  It's not a bad thing, being an eccentric.  It's actually quite a good thing.  Being an eccentric is my authentic self.  That was one of the things the speaker said today at Avery's graduation ceremony.   In essence, be your authentic self.   In 2005 I was my authentic self.  I was a very scared forty-eight year old man struggling almost every minute of every day with very deep and abiding childhood memories.  Eleven years on I can say I am still my authentic self, only this authentic self is much more grounded, much more resilient, and much more trusting of a Higher Power greater than myself, a power that both guides me and protects me, but more importantly a Power that allows me to move about this world each day in deeper vulnerability and presence.  This is my life now and what a fabulous life it is!!