I've never been a girlie girl. I believe I've established that. But this week I've been thinking of my friend Sara, and how she once rolled her eyes at my poor chapped lips and handed me a Revlon lipstick. "Use this - it's better than Chapstick." I was in my thirties and it was the only lipstick I had in my makeup bag for the longest. I don't remember how long I kept it, but I finally tossed it and replaced it with something from Avon, or Covergirl. Needless to say I never really learned the fine art of makeup, nor do I still grasp the need for lipstick. I've never even used up an entire lipstick - I usually toss them after a year or so. But I keep one in my desk drawer - a lovely, rich gingerspice color - which I occasionally put on before a meeting, or when my lips are chapped and I can't find my Chapstick, or when I think of Sara.
Here I stand again, speaking to an empty room. My thoughts aren't worth the cyberspace they would take up if I cared to tweet or post to Facebook, but here I stand anyway. I had no idea how long it had been since my muse had forced me to write. I used to write almost daily, poetry mostly, when I was younger and believed that someone cared what I had to say. I wanted to be e.e. cummings or T.S. Eliot or anyone who seemed to be so comfortable in his own skin to pour out his emotions onto a blank page. It took me a few years to realize that the writers who filled my pantheon of literary deities were not that comfortable after all, but wrote because not writing was more painful than the spilling of emotion. So I think I will take up my keyboard once more, wade out into the battle, and write.
Comments