A Writer's Woes - 4
He was still trying to get over it. The Loss : Of nothing material. Of nothing tangible. Of nothing that was born with him. The person had never been there. Yet she had appeared.....and disappeared. The fleeting presence had turned his world upside down.
And a month earlier, he had decided to get back to his writing. That was his escape from the world. That was his cocoon, where he wove intricate patterns of creativity and presented to the world. He put pen on paper. But the words wouldn't flow. There was no escape from a world which seemed so empty after the Loss. There seemed to be no escaping the patterns of memories and dreams that he had woven for himself. He thought he'd built a cocoon for himself....but that now seemed a web from which there was no escape. The spider owning the web seemed to devour on his creativity. His mind wouldn't tick. His pen wouldn't move.
The last he had written was a poem for her. That had now gone in vain. But he now feared that that had been the last ounce of creativity in him. "Why though??" he wondered. He took the book where he'd bundled all his previous writings. The creativity had oozed out of everything that he saw. From the hills, the greenery, the sea, to people, their lives and habits. From little objects like letters to seemingly irrelevant stuff like traffic.
He looked around him. For once he felt so disconnected. Or he had disconnected himself entirely from the world. He again asked himself "Why though??" He pondered for a while. Then realisation dawned on him. When she'd been there, she'd been the centre of his world. He'd forgotten everything else. When she'd left, the Loss had been the centre of his world. He'd still forgotten everything else. "For a writer, it is important to be emotional; but he must have enough control to detach himself from those emotions and recognise them, to be able to write about them" his Guru had said. He'd not been able to execute the second part. He had not been able to detach himself and view his emotions extraneously.
He put pen on paper now. A couple of lines flowed. That was it. The mind and the pen came to a standstill. He felt so drained that he fell asleep on his desk.
When he got up, he was determined not to give up. The Loss threatened to take away something so intrinsic to his personality-his creativity- and he was determined not to let it happen. He put pen on paper. And emotions welled up in him. And they flowed. They flowed in words. They flowed in wonderful words he'd never been able to express. It was a compilation of all those moments with her which had meant the world to him. There were lines of immense joy. There were lines of deepest sorrow. Each line was a dedication. Each line was an outburst. He discovered how much pent-up emotion his head and heart seemed to hold. When we felt he was done, he felt so light. He felt empty again. But this was a different kind of emptiness. Like getting something off one's chest. He tried to reason. Of course, there had been no space for creativity, when all of it had been taken up by the Loss!
He read all he had written. He re-read it. There was this impulse to burn it all up. But would burning the sheets mean burning the memories as well? He thought for a while. All the detachment he'd practiced over the years would come to use now. The decision was tough. But to save himself and his creativity, he had to take it. He wanted to do something that would connect him with his creativity again.
He did something his Guru had always advised. He somehow never believed it. But the time had come to try it out. He chose to accept the Loss. He'd been in a constant sense of hope and longing that the Loss was temporary. That the Loss was reversible. He finally chose to concede defeat. "There will be times in your life, when you've to sacrifice something you want in exchange of something which could seem of lesser value at that moment...but could be the purpose of your existence" The writer felt he was at such a cusp. He felt he had to sacrifice all the hopes of the Loss being reversed, to get back in touch with his creativity. His creativity had been the purpose of his existence so far....and he was about to lose it.
He fell asleep again. And so did his creativity. Yet there was a part of his mind-and heart-working constantly on accepting the loss. It took days. It took weeks. He didn't give up. The process was painful. To destroy castles of dreams and memories that had been painstakingly built was tough. Tougher was taking the decision to destroy. But then, he had to do it........
One sunny day, months later, he wrote a complete piece again. He compared it with the others he'd written a few months before the Loss. This was in no way a reflection of his skill...or talent. But still, it was his brainchild- and a particularly fond one for the labor had been hard indeed. He chuckled to himself.
All he had written on that night was still on his desk. He'd chosen not to burn it. And wisely so. She'd probably return as a character in his future pieces.....and so would the Loss. And when he introduced her as a character, he would secretly hope that she'd re-introduce herself in his life again, sans the Loss. The hope somehow inspired him...and he used it just to inspire himself. He felt everything around him as inspiring as they were earlier. Thoughts flowed...and so did words....he was writing...and writing again.
- 13th January 2014
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