When words fail

Words have been part of my life, one way or another, for as long as I can remember. From a very early age, I understood the power of words arranged in the just the right order, and especially when they’re delivered at just the right time, however that may be measured. So, when words abandon me, it’s a particularly difficult thing.

When I was somewhere around seven, give or take, I found an antique manual typewriter in the attic of our house. It had belonged to my parents, though I have no idea where it came from. Nevertheless, I carefully typed out what I labelled “Schenck News”, with some small “news stories”, including an “interview” with my dad which reported that he liked his job. It even had a “comic”, the humour of which was based on an answer to a question that was random letters/characters that I typed. I don’t know, but I doubt I thought that was actually funny even back then.

Whatever that was way back then, I’m fairly certain that it was my first attempt at creating something that I specifically intended for others to read. I did that several times during my childhood and adolescence, and the pace only picked up over the decades after that, and this blog has been part of that for nearly 18 years.

In recent years—say eight, give or take—I’ve had periods in which I didn’t produce much of anything, for one reason or another. That’s become much worse since Nigel died, mostly because of the realities that followed. In the past couple of years in particular, something new emerged: In my head, I heard only silence.

Actually, that’s not entirely true: There have been times when posts popped into my head nearly fully formed, though often at night when I was in bed and trying to fall asleep. Many other times, there was simply silence, and no amount of willing things to be different could make the words arrange themselves on the page.

Any recent casual reader of this blog would see that my last post of June and first post of July were both in the ”Weekend Diversion: 1984 series, and it would be logical to assume that those were pre-written and their publication pre-scheduled, since I talked about doing exactly that back in March. However, both were written shortly before I published them, and, in fact, only two of the 10 posts in the series so far were pre-scheduled.

This is a specific example of how things are for me at the moment: I knew those posts were coming up (it’s a set schedule, after all), I knew the subject of each post, and probably exactly what I thought about it. I could easily have pre-written all the posts in the series—but I didn’t.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this happening, and why it’s been far more intense than it ever has been before. I don’t have one single answer, and that’s part of what has made all of this so challenging—and frightening.

I know part of it is that this is a very difficult year for me, what with its overload of challenging times: My 65th birthday, what would’ve been Nigel’s 60th birthday, and the fifth anniversary of his death. All three of those events are how the fuck can that be true?!” moments for me. My age, that Nigel didn’t make it past 55, that he’ll have been gone five years—all of that means I’m in an existential nowhere land, carrying a rich and beautiful past, but also nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and fear about the future. Even so, much of that has been the case ever since Nigel died, so what’s different now?

I think part of it was that I launched into what turned into a major a project I’ve yet to talk about here or on Facebook, for various reasons and no particular reason. I began with the best of intentions, and then derailed myself—and my emotional well-being—several times along the way. Worse, the project isn’t even finished yet, though there are extenuating circumstances for that.

So, when I take the existential angst I live with like background radiation, add in the specific emotional demands of three important anniversaries, and then put all that under the immense weight and pressure of an absolutely huge and very physically demanding project, I know it was inevitable that something had to give. As bleak as I know that sounds, it’s actually not: Instead, it’s actually a light, and a bit of hope: This means that the current dark times will pass, and not as long from now as I am from where this particular challenge started. The massive project will end, and then I’ll get through each of the two remaining challenging dates this year, just as I got through the first one.

What I can’t know for certain is that the end of my current dark times will mean the silence should end, too, and the words will return. I hope so. Still, I’ve also learned that, if necessary, I can learn to live without arranging words in the just the right order, and delivering them at just the right time.

Footnote:

When I was thinking about this post in recent weeks, my mind once again seized on pop music, in this case, the 1982 song ”Words” by French musician F.R. David (video below). I’d never heard of the song when lived in the USA, and when I heard it on the radio here in New Zealand, I thought it was performed by a woman. Clearly I didn’t listen very carefully then—or ever, to be honest. Still, it was the lyric, “Words don't come easy to me” that kept playing in my head as I planned this post, and it’s definitely not the first time that my life and pop music had interwined. It’s not surprising I didn’t know the song in the USA: It only hit Number 62 on the Billboard “Hot 100”, but it did hit Number 7 in New Zealand, which is probably why I eventually heard it on NZ pop radio. Veritas in musica/ and all that.