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Thursday, 22 May 2008

Erato Where Art Thou?

By Leah Aronoff

What set me off
Multiple interests in varied degrees, and uncontrollable curiosity about a wide variety of subjects are characteristics about which I had begun to feel some shame. It was feeling wrong. Diletantish.

In a weak moment, and looking for something to say during an awkward luncheon pause, I exposed my thoughts to a close and admired friend, who, without warning, put me under instant analysis, and announced that I was close to winding up in a state of tragedy.

Thoughtlessly accepting her diagnosis, I became fearful. I was worse off than before.
Although people may be capable of lifelong development, it seems to me that real personal major change tends to diminish with the years. At my age I am me, and rather unlikely now to become a better and improved person.

This was an uncomfortable thought, so I asked my friend, who I now felt was responsible for my inner disturbance, what I should do about me. Her answer was unhesitatingly swift. “Why don’t you write?”

All her life my friend was totally immersed in a literary world. So was she really thinking about me, or was she simply trying to end a tedious conversation?

It did not matter. I was suddenly possessed by a train of thought that spattered in every direction. What would I write about? I do not know a lot about any one subject. The few things I know about to a greater degree are of little interest to most of the people I know and care about, so for whom would I write? For me alone? I don’t enjoy talking to myself.

This is becoming a painful process. I already know what I know, or what I think I know. Would writing help me regain my diminishing self respect? Would writing be my therapeutic cushion and prevent further slippage of pride? I was struck with a nasty thought. Was the woman giving me this advice really my friend? I said to her, “I can’t write.” And that was the end of that. Until a few moments ago.

I think about writing
I am now a writer. No readers, but a writer nonetheless. The concerns I brought to my friend remain unresolved. I no longer intend to resolve them, let alone discuss them again. So why am I writing? Well, let’s not call it writing. I am putting things down on paper. I’ll just do it and let someone else worry about what to call it.

But why am I doing this? What was the trigger? If a typewriter were not conveniently to hand, would I be doing it at all? I felt flattered that my literary friend seemed to believe I could write.
As I began to roll things around in my head, I felt a pang of hunger, which contained a little pang of relief, which rolled over into a pang of joy. How could I write when I wanted to eat? How could I word my way through the discomfort of hunger? Don’t remind me of those who produced their finest works while starving in the streets, the garrets, the jails, in exile. I am not like them. Yet. If you don’t read this, you won’t have missed a thing. We both come out ahead.

I write
So now I’m going to have lunch. Having lunch is a nice thing for me. Food is the least of it. If you could call it food. Having lunch seats me at a large window overlooking a yard, which, if I were less lazy, I might have been able to call a garden.

Close by are birds, two feeders full of nourishment (it’s winter) and a tangle of tired growth through which some youngsters are determined to cut a path. The boys are under the impression that the path is a shortcut to somewhere. God knows where they are heading.

Our house is on a cul-de-sac. Miserable, thorny scrub begins where the road leaves off. Cutting through means having to cope with unexpectedly steep drops and climbs. Taking a “shortcut” means forcing one’s way through thick brush which parts just enough here and there to reveal soil which is a slippery muck most of the year. Some muck is good. This is not.

Generations of small boys have tasted the magic of this hidden wild in the heart of the city, and have made it their repository for the butts of forbidden cigarettes, candy and potato chip wrappers, soft drink bottles and the contents of bladders which empty freely in the greatest out-house in the world.

There are also neighborhood cats, tame and feral. They have become emboldened beyond bounds now that they realize our dog is gone for good.

Telling you about all this is almost as good as watching it. But not quite. If I wait too long to have lunch, it’ll have to be called dinner, and dinner has a different story to go with it. A story I may, or may not, decide to tell.

Damn my friend!

This was written January, 1972. I was 54. Apart from letters, I did not write again for twenty-two years. On re-reading the above, the reason for the gap in time does not evade me.

[The Elder Storytelling Place can always use additional stories. If you would like to contribute to this growing and important collection written by ordinary elders about their lives, the guidelines are here.]

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