write_the_book raze this is a thing you used to say. sometimes it was "write the book", and sometimes it was "write the story". i never knew if it was encouragement meant for me, or if you were aiming it at yourself, or everyone, or no one. when i told you i didn't think i could write it, whatever "it" was supposed to be, and i thought it would take me my whole life to get halfway home, all you said was, "try." the thing i didn't know — the thing it's taken me this long to understand — is that i've been writing it from the beginning. it's out of sequence. there's no table of contents. there are pages missing and creased and stuck together, and places where the ink has faded or bled. but it's here. it's all right here. i've written it, and i'll go on writing it until there_are_no_words left and all i can do is moan. i'll find a sound to match the words that aren't there anymore. and when my voice won't do a thing i tell it to, i'll tap my fingers on whatever i can find that will amplify my touch. i'll write it that way. and when my mind fails me and everything i've known has fled to some place it won't be called back from, i'll tell it with my eyes. i'll give you all i've seen through the clouded globes that have guided me every day of my life. and when there's nothing in those eyes, i'll let my last breath hit as hard and sweet as i can make it. i'll let that be my voice. and if you're still here, you can read the book i've spent all these years writing. 210923 ... kerry keep scribbling and scratching and tapping. follow the threads. spin in circles and shake off the dust when it accumulates; it will go away. i know this wasn't written to me but i'd read your book, j. 210923 ... raze i'd read yours too in a heartbeat. i guess it was just a bit of a lightbulb moment when it dawned on me that we're all writing our books (or our lives, or whatever it is we're writing) here. it's like you said: the larger story is broken into a lot of smaller pieces. i think those pieces carry an incredible cumulative power when you stand back and get a look at them in their totality, even if there's a lot still to be lived and written. (i first wrote "righting" instead of "writing". freudian_typos in action, or random brain freeze?) 210923 what's it to you? who go blather from