Singular Moments

On a tulip tree, a lone tulip. There always has to be a first one -- that is the way of all life. The first bloom is replicating the first moment of life for all of us, for the universe, for whatever greater environment that may exist out beyond our consciousness or ability to perceive.

Do you know what are some of my favorite moments? When my mind, and memory go blank; I'm not thinking backwards or forwards, I'm just existing like any other collection of atoms, molecules, and DNA.

Buddhists would identify this as living in the moment, but for me, what's best is when the moment too is a blank slate.

Know why?

That's where my imagination lives. In the silence and the emptiness of a single moment. Like the first moment of all new life, and in a way it is, from a writing perspective.

The challenge, for writers, is how to balance the essential aloneness of our craft or art with the also critical social component of being a human being. How to be alone and together with others at the same time?

There may be no individuals more attuned to the nuances of aloneness than writers. Most artists have something concrete, either other people or other senses to work with -- a living model, human or not (painters, sculptors), sound (musicians), motion (dancers).

But those of us who write have absolutely nothing to work with, and therefore nothing or no one to keep us company.

That is the why of how we also need people, I believe, and have always believed. It's not that we are somehow weaker or less capable of being alone than others -- that is a ridiculous notion.

We are the only artists who work entirely alone, with no other living form, stationary object or sensory companion to help us do our work. Most of us become exhausted at some point, whether after one hour, six hours or eight hours or more varies by individual, and it is at that point that we seek connection with the flesh and blood of others to remember that we exist outside of the realm of words; that there are those who see and value us, and who will hold us and love us just like normal people.

Because make no mistake about it. A writer is not a normal person. A writer is, by definition, among the loneliest workers on this planet.

Perhaps that is why we can identify so fiercely with a single bloom on a single tree in a single yard on a single street in a single town in a single state in a single country somewhere on this globe.

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