church of pen and paper

Ernest Hemmingway once watched a matador in Spain get stabbed through the marrow of his shin by a bull’s horn and scream out in horror and Hemingway decided in that moment that if he can portray on the page what he just witnessed, through the written word, then he might be a pretty damn good writer.

In elementary school, I had an incredible teacher who would take us outside and have us observe nature and record what we saw. I did not know then how tremendous an act this was, and is an act I continue to this day. I’ll look at the bark on the trees, ancient as it is and in some world or some other realm, I can see the face of my ancestors carved through the oak.

My mother can walk through the woods for hours on end and feel the presence of a holy spirit, something shifting within and through the bushes and flowers and fallen leaves, the branches and the flocks of birds, like the souls of angels carrying her own soul through whichever trail she steps down with the soles of her feet.

Writing is this way, at least somewhat, like with each sentence, you come toward an opening in the wilderness. The effort is a failing one, but here is the effort: to write a sentence moving toward tears as a response, the way my brother will look at a dead fish in his hands before he cooks it, the way a buddy of mine can watch his bird dog Elvis track down quail and doves as it were a painting brushed by Michelangelo of religious proportion, the way my father can remember his own father for just a few moments and remember his essence eternally in that moment, the way my grandmother can stare at a fossil that is billions of years old that my deceased grandfather had found and given to her and after a couple of seconds she’s crying like she’s just seen the coming of God.

Writing is trying to reveal a moment in its place in eternity. As ridiculous as it sounds, writing, to me, is next to godliness. I truly believe it or else I don’t reckon I’d dedicate so much of my time here on earth to the craft.