November 25, 1998
Getting over her and cleansing the bad parts of myself that made her leave have been the two issues that have occupied 90% of my thoughts since Andrea left. That's what I've been writing about for the past year.
Will I ever get over Andrea? Will I be able to change my behavior? In trying to answer those questions through these stories, I have stumbled upon something I never expected. Writing. Writing in and of itself has changed me. I read that Jack Kerouac once said that "writing was the little trick that made life bearable." I have discovered that to be true.
Henry Miller wrote in Tropic of Cancer that "a year ago, I fancied myself an artist. Now that is no longer in doubt. I am." Writing has become a part of my daily routine and, as a consequence, it has become part of who I am. Writing is now on par with eating and sleeping and working out and going to the bathroom and throwing the six-inch flesh javelin every night. It is an activity that I enjoy. It is a necessary activity. It is an activity that, funny as this sounds, I cannot remember not doing.
I have tried to capture my most complex thoughts in my writing. Interestingly, the more I write, the more complex my ideas become. I once heard Ray Bradbury of The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 fame say in a radio interview that the secret of being a good writer is to write.
And so that's what I've done. One hundred and seventeen times have I written you about things I've seen on the outside and things I've struggled with on the inside. The more I write, the more in control of myself I feel. I have found that I am completely relaxed when I am writing. So in a sense, it is a sort of mediation.
To create, whether it be music or words or images, is to give someone a balcony seat in the most interesting theater in the world: your mind. Through one's creation, a listener, a reader, an observer becomes privy to the constant monologue running in our heads. Think of all the thoughts you have in a day. Now think how many of them you speak out loud. 95% of what you think, you don't say. How do you know a person when you only are exposed to 5% of them? You don't. Our conversations are mundane. Our relationships are shallow.
But to listen to a guitar gently weeping, to follow the writer into his heart of darkness, or to see the scream of a painter on canvas is to feast on holy sustenance.
On rare occasions, the spoken word can provide a mainline into someone's soul. Take this phone conversation I had with a girl named Meredith last Thursday night. She and I had a date planned for the following evening. Witness how she masterfully shared her inner voice with me:
Jim: Hey Meredith. How's it going?
Meredith: Fine Jim. How are you?
Jim: Good. I'm doing good. I mean well, I'm doing well. So, what time do you want me to pick you up tomorrow night?
Meredith: I don't want to go out with you.
(Long pause on Jim's part.)
Jim: What? (nervous laugh follows)
Meredith: I don't want to go out with you.
(Another long pause on Jim's part.)
Jim: Well, okay. Well I guess that's it.
Meredith: I think so.
Jim: Well, thank you. It was good talking to you. Talk to you soon.
Meredith: I don't think so.
(Jim wonders why he just thanked her.)
Jim: Okay then. Have a good night. Buh-bye.
Meredith: Goodbye.
See what I mean? With all the tact and deftness of Babe the Blue Ox, Meredith expressed a facet of her soul reserved for only a few. What an honor it was to be one of the few.
And while her blunt rejection stung a bit, through writing--that beautiful act of meditation that I have been practicing for nearly a year--I can calmly, rationally put that fucking bitch into perspective.
I bid you peace,
Broadway Jim Jenkins