A few weeks ago I visited my sister in New York and noticed my book, Productivity Is For Robots on her shelf. I’m proud of the work, but given enough time, all writers wince at their own words. Still, I flipped through the chapters the way you would an old yearbook, and landed on this passage:
“Some things in life come along and make you forget about everything else. … Yet, there are other things. Things that come along and make everything worth remembering. Things that shoot electricity into the vein of every day. For me, that thing is writing.”
You can throw the world a paragraph like you’re throwing a baseball, only to have it turn around and hit you like a cinderblock years later.
Falling off the creative wagon is simple. A few days away become a multi-month bender. Drunk on overthinking and procrastination. Too hungover to face the blank page.
I’m in a new, strange season of life, brought on by details I won’t write about yet. All I can say is that clarity is a burden before it’s a gift. And I’m at the beginning. Tip-toeing toward hindsight while it’s still a dim, dead star. Bracing myself for the flood of light that will soon drown me.
A Henry David Thoreau quote: “One must stand up to live before sitting down to write.”
I’ve certainly been on my feet. My nine-month pregnancy has delivered me to Spain, Mexico City, and Amsterdam. I’ve driven from California to Texas and back again. I’m writing this in Miami. By the time you read it, I’ll be in Medellín, Colombia, feeling as fragile and teary-eyed as a newborn.
Standing up to live sounds romantic, but the second half of Thoreau’s quote is what matters most: Sitting down to write.
Some of you have been on this “newsletter” for years. Some of you subscribed months ago and have yet to hear from me. It’s not a lack of material that’s kept me from sharing, but a relapse in fear and distraction. I have journals filled with stories and ideas. I have been writing fiction. Short stories I hope to publish and share soon.
This publication is still called The Temperature Check. It’s about life and writing. I don’t know exactly what form it will take, but I plan to make it honest and beautiful.
Rereading that passage reminded me I still have writing to steady myself. Even as a stranger in a strange land, I can still cut a vein over a bright, white page. Hangovers be damned.
People love to say, “Everything is going to work out just fine.” While that’s always been true for me, I don’t find it helpful when things are going wrong. Because deep down, I don’t believe it’s the truth. Not everything turns out for the best.
But here’s another passage from Robots I found (one that’s more optimistic than the sentence I just wrote):
“Some people break, don’t get fixed, and that’s the end.
… But then there are other people. People who become stronger in the broken places. They restart, realign, rise from the ashes.
They reach a sacred moment where all their mistakes, heartbreaks, and error pages make sense. The moment where surprise and inevitability finally overlap. Where, “how could this have happened?” becomes, “Of course. How could it have been any other way?”
Thanks for sticking around while I checked out. I’m back now.
The temperature is going to work out just fine.
-Corey
How ironic, I was thinking about you last week. I’ve missed your beautiful words. Thank you for sharing.
Not to spoil the ending, but everything is going to be OK!