Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Back from Exile

It's been over a year since I last posted anything here. My self-imposed exile had a lot to do with moving on from professional domination and starting a new chapter in my life. But in the process, it seems I have also cut out my tongue. I've trifled with the idea of starting another blog under a different name. Yet here is a ready-made audience for me, and there certainly is a draw to knowing that my writing is actually being read! And so here I am, back to my musings in this half-veiled confessional.

Quite some time ago now, I had an acclaimed writer who was my friend, lover and submissive talk up the idea of starting a book. He had such an exalted confidence in me, it was a thrill to know that he thought I have what it takes to "make it" as a great writer. Yet when he walked me through what it might be like, the attention and the criticism in that literary spotlight, I felt myself momentarily live through the majesty and the scrutiny, and I found it all wanting.

Society loves the driven. Too bad I have so little to prove. As the years go by and I gain snippets of the unchanging wisdom which underlies the illusion of this world, I find myself buying into the accepted paradigm of success less and less. We are evolving and it is beyond me or any one person, or even species. I breathe, I move, I feel, I write, and life cycles on.

My exile was for another reason as well. There was a shrinking away, a filling with shame, a brief trip down a torrid and tormented path. It feels like a dream now, one which slowly, relentlessly transformed into something closer to a nightmare. Though I will never deny the bliss and the high adventure - and words can only approximate the finer edges of truth - the unmistakable judgment which eventually burst through the blindness of my self-control is that it was truly a bad romance. It's been months since it all ended, and I am still shaking off the mental fog of that hallucination. Writing again, no doubt, is part of that healing.

I'm back! Welcome to 2010 dear readers. More later, I promise.

~Namaste