It is the forty-second day on my island, and I have a new
concern.
The end of this lockdown may well be in sight. Some
restaurants have shaken their phoenix ashes and a few non-essential stores are
accepting patrons. The slow return to some measure of normal may have begun, depending
on luck and common sense (the latter of which provides me only the most guarded
of hope).
Despite this, the sheltering carries on for now. From an
emotional standpoint, I think I can handle social distancing for a while
longer. From a writing standpoint, I am in crisis mode. I am running out of
subject matter.
(Aside: I sometimes wonder if all writers try to throw a Wizard
of Oz-like curtain over their craft. Writing is backbreaking labor, but the
final product almost always feels effortless, as if the author had discovered
the work whole rather than crafting it syllable by syllable. Make it seem like
you heard the whole story in a bar, Ernest. Hide all the sweat and blood behind
a veneer of effervescent simplicity, Scott. Pretend that every phrase is as
inevitable as the rising of the moon, Virginia. I doubt the process was ever that
easy for any of them. The art of writing is like the proverbial sausage factory
with one exception. Most of what the food works produces is palatable. Most of
what an author churns out is gristle.)
To the matter at hand – for the next stretch of days, in
order to keep the flow of these notes going, I will try to filter my thoughts
through a word chosen in alphabetical order.
So today on my island I am feeling Abecedarian, a charming
adjective that means, well, alphabetical. It looks like a made-up nursery word
(think ‘a-b-c-d-arian), but apparently it first saw light of day in the late
second century CE in some serious Latin poetry.
For the record, I’ve already given thought to ‘b’, ‘c’ and
maybe ‘d.’ I can only hope that we are all sprung free before I must go too much
further. I don’t relish finding a suitable word for ‘x’. Nor I’m sure do any of
us want to be inside reading these in another twenty-four days or so.
In the end, the sausage that I am about to present may not
be edible. But it spares you from hearing about my nursery school years (I once
failed apple sauce. I have no recollection of how, but it must have been
gruesome.) or of the history of jigsaw puzzles (Odd fact – no one knows the derivation
of the word ‘puzzle’. It is itself an enigma). And maybe before too many links
are produced, my muses will wake from their slumber or, better still, we will
be able to step out into the cool fresh air and leave our islands for good.
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