this morning i called e at 8:16 in the morning crying.
really crying. hard. furious, eyes closed tight crying. i imagine he was on the other end of the line wondering what happened in the last 50 or so minutes since he left me sitting in the bed, my itty-bitty squash netbook in my lap, my glasses slipping down my nose and my intention set on writing.
it hadn't even been an hour.
i just kept crying to him, "baby, its gone, its gone...baby its gone."
when he was able to navigate my flood of tears and understand me...very calmly he asked me.
what's gone ki...what's wrong.
"it's...its all gone...i looked and looked and i can't find it, and..."
and i started to cry again.
he waited patiently, and then asked again.
"ki, what's wrong, what's gone?"
"my words, my words are gone, baby their gone...and they...they were so good, and i looked and looked and i can't find them. they're gone gone...and i loved them...it was the right way to say it..and it worked...and the voice was different...and..."
and i started to cry again. harder.
if that was even possible. real harder. like the snot was rolling down my nose and down the back of my throat and my eyes couldn't see anymore. they were flooded. and i couldn't see or swallow clearly anymore.
"what happened?"
"they're all gone and..."
more crying.
"did you look in different files, on the other laptop, the mac. it can't be gone."
being my husband he knows without clear direction or explanation what i'm crying over.
"they'regoneandilookedallaroundiopenedeveryfileandsearchedanditwasthebestwriting...
*breath*
andthevoicewasanewvoiceanditwasgreatandilookedbabyilookedbabyilookedeverywhere...andirememberwhatisaidbutjustpiecesandican'tputitbacktogetheranditwassoright....."
that has to be what i sounded like.
"did u look again, which piece, maybe i can find it for you, calm down"
more crying.
"itsgonebabyitsgone"
i knew one day it would happen. i held it in the back of my mind and rolled it around my eyes a few times, wondering what my face would look like the day i lost a piece of writing to technology.
i tried it on for size and would say aloud to myself periodically, "girl, you know you betta not loose none of these words."
i started talking about writing while writing and about words while writing words, saying how each one was a color, particularly hansa yellow and magenta blue. i started giving the words their own color identities so if they ever became lost i could paint them out on wood panels, and hang them up around the house with writing that said:
have you seen me? missing since 9/23/10, 8:16 am. last seen painting a scene in ki's mind's eye.
and then i was sure, i was sure that e, or maybe mykey, or maybe even yali would find the words laying around the house. maybe they would trip over something beautiful, like the way granma said:
"i sholl do 'preciate it sheila."
or maybe while the kids were stirring up the natural peanut butter they would stir together a group of letters i could fish out and unscramble...you know and piece together the sentence they fell out of.
but no. i can't paint this piece and put it on the wall.
"ki, did you try looking through all the files maybe it was combined with something else"
e was still trying.
me? i was sitting in the bed with my glasses at the tip of my nose, sliding around my face in tears...looking down at nothing. realizing that i finally met my writer's day.
"i'llcallyoubackbye."
and i ended the call. i cried for two gasps of breaths, picked the phone up and sent this text:
'i'm sorry baby i can't talk right now. i have to mourn those words and cry.'
a few seconds later i called him back.
"i don't ever want to talk about it, don't try to get them back. forget about it. don't ever bring it up. i want to forget this ever happened."
"okay"
"i'm going to get back to writing, i'll call you later...bye"
and that was it. i went back to writing. the first few minutes i cried while writing. but soon i found a stride and rode it out.
and you know what, nothing that i wrote was as good as the three pages or 1500 words i lost. those words i labored over for days. the new words today are new...they haven't found their place and fell into line yet. i haven't flung them around the room enough.
but they are close to being there.
---
as the kids were starting their online classes and i had to take charlie the bird back into the bathroom (for silence) i caught a glimpse of myself.
i had white tracks going down my face underneath both eyes and underneath my nose. those underneath my eyes stuttered in and out, not clear tracks...those underneath my nose were clear and steady.
this is what i would look like the day i lost some of my words, i thought.
---
i've heard writers speak of their words with endearment that begets children. love. pure love. i've heard them talk about laboring and birthing their books into the world.
i am now one of them.
and loosing my words is like discovering your loosing a new baby in your womb.
words are not just words. they are more than a collection of letters/symbols that together make the sound of a thought.
to each writer it is different.
to me they are pieces and fragments of colors and shapes and lines.
imagine seeing a coral and yellow and magenta triangular shaped rainbow of thoughts with intermittent streaks of cobalt blue and phthalo blue (red shade) burn up in front of your eyes...never to be seen again.
---
i was sitting in a writing class tues. night and we were talking about writing, the writer's life and one guy shared a quote from another (famous) writer that read something like this:
"to be a writer you have to be mentally ill. there has to be a defect in the brain to allow someone to be a writer"
i rolled that around my mind. i sat with it, daydreaming for a second. i imagined myself and what color i'd look and sound like if i was crazy.
could i be crazy? if not that meant i would not finish this so very important to me book.
and i thought. i can be crazy. i can.
and still be sane.
--
so here i am, forgetting and not forgetting. moving on but stagnantly mourning the loss of 1500 words or so. words that seemed funny and serious. words that spoke of characters and people. words that flew out of me once a crowd of crows that transformed themselves into a flock of hummingbirds.
they were great. but i will move my writerly self along.
with luv...and colorful words,
ki
(a little bit crazy and a little bit sane)
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