small life, slow life

V and I went to see my dad today, and although he hasn’t asked me this in a long time, at some point in our conversation (and trying to stop V from tearing all the guitars off the walls), he said, “So, are you writing?”

For so long, the answer has been, “No, but I wish I was,” or, “I was on a good streak for a while, but then things got really busy.”

Today, it made me so happy to reply, “Yes, I am actually!”

My grandmother, his mother, was a writer. She lived in a small New York apartment by herself and wrote plays until she died. I worshipped her from a very young age and aspired to be just like her.

I told him how I’d been in a class and heard the phrase in my mind: You need to write 100 days in a row. And how I didn’t even question it; I just said “Okay!” And here we are. Day 63. I can’t believe it; almost two-thirds done!

But even sixty-three days in, I feel pretty rusty. I was a daily writer for most of my life, and that ended with my time in Japan. That journal that I wrote in every day in my little farming town represented a chapter in my life that was unfinished.

And sure, I have written since then. I started this blog after that. I have had great strokes of inspiration sometimes, and been paid to write for others, but I have never written on a daily basis again. I feel out of practice, my sentences are choppy and too similar. I don’t think like a writer, the way I used to. I used to wonder how I would put feelings into words. Now I just feel them.

Is that the worst thing? To feel the feelings versus thinking about translating them for an audience? I’m not sure.

My dad has always been so supportive of me writing. He was happy to hear that I’m writing here every day. I think about four people read it, I thought to myself.

But then I remembered that it’s not about how many are watching. How many are commenting. How many likes. It’s about doing something I love…and enjoying that, and getting better at it.