Tirza ~ May 1

 

I’ve landed in a room full of strangers, and the first words I hear Marta, our leader, utter on the zoom are “Cherish the unknown.”

 

Seems like I’ve landed in the right place.

 

I’ve made sporadic attempts to find old bits of writing in the past few weeks, now that supposedly I have more free time to write.  (Hard to believe there’s ever free time, as the daily details that catch our attention shapeshift to fill the space, no matter how mundane or uninteresting.)  The point being is that this quote jumped out at me atop a story I am hoping to fiddle with, if not finish:

 

"Truth" said Balthazar to me once, blowing his nose in an old tennis sock, "Truth is what most contradicts itself in time."  Justine, by Lawrence Durrell.

 

Unearthing the quote that I had copied out decades ago was like finding a message in a bottle washed to shore, serving up as the purpose of what I most want to write now.  

 

I’d like to trace the shapeshifting of my truth in that old sock of a life.  And to cherish the unknown, to quote Marta, amidst what I think I know about my past, my stories, my sense of self.  May I find surprises and new mysteries, indeed, and without the rumination of old truths (as in a cow rechewing her cud).

 

And precisely because of this, as protagonist I am biting my proverbial fingernails, nervous as my writer unwraps her scalpel from the sealed bag as she calmly takes stock:  where best to make the first incision.

 

It’s too late to change my mind, we’re going in. And there’s no anesthesia in sight.