Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Just as Cap’n J and I out­fit the Ner­ka with emer­gency equip­ment – radio, bilge pumps, fire extin­guish­ers – I reach for par­tic­u­lar sur­vival gear as a writer. Late­ly, the one I’ve been keep­ing clos­est is Dani Shapiro’s Still Writ­ing: The Per­ils and Plea­sures of a Cre­ative Life. This book is a rare gift, one I flip open to a ran­dom page and find myself face to face with the truth I most need to hear. Today’s sec­tion, “The Cave,” is no exception:

 

One of the strangest aspects of a writ­ing life is what I think of as going in and out of the cave. When we are in the mid­dle of a piece of work, the cave is the only place we belong. Yes, there are prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. Eat­ing, for instance. Or help­ing a child with home­work. Or tak­ing out the trash. What­ev­er. But a writer in the midst of a sto­ry needs to find a way to keep her head there. She can’t just pop out of the cave, have some fun, go danc­ing, and then pop back in. The work demands our full atten­tion, our deep­est con­cen­tra­tion, our best selves. If we’re in the mid­dle – in the boat we’re build­ing – we can­not let our­selves be dis­tract­ed by the bright and shiny. The bright and shiny is a mirage, an illu­sion. It is of no use to us.

If there is a time for that bright­ness, it is at the end: when the book is fin­ished and the revi­sions have been turned in, when you’ve giv­en every­thing inside of you and then some. When the cave is emp­ty. Every rock turned over. The walls cov­ered with hiero­glyph­ics that only you under­stand – notes you’ve writ­ten to your­self in the darkness…

 

Life over the past month has indeed been bright and shiny. I’d like to share all that good­ness with you, post­ing pho­tos and videos and news of friends’ upcom­ing events. I’d like to tell you how my res­i­den­cy con­clud­ed, with thought­ful reflec­tions on the expe­ri­ence and grat­i­tude for your let­ters and encour­age­ment along the way. I’d like to respond to those of you who’ve asked about this year’s Fish­er­Po­ets Gath­er­ing, shar­ing sto­ries of Cap’n J’s debut per­for­mances (which, all nepo­tism aside, were amaz­ing), his sis­ter Ashley’s win of the On-Site Poet­ry Con­test, and the pure joy this annu­al reunion brings. I’d like to tell you what a tremen­dous suc­cess last weekend’s She Tells Sea Tales was, as an inau­gur­al fundrais­er for Port Townsend’s Girls’ Boat Project and a pow­er­ful cel­e­bra­tion of women in mar­itime trades.

 

What I real­ly don’t want to tell you is that, in the midst of this inspi­ra­tional love­fest, I’ve been hav­ing a hard time. A hard time: even in admis­sion, I am less than authen­tic, reach­ing for a euphemism designed to main­tain my “I’m fine” wall. I don’t want to tell you that in ven­tur­ing so far from the cave, I’ve got­ten lost in a dif­fer­ent dark­ness. I don’t want to tell you about spon­ta­neous weep­ing and sleep­ing too much. About the unnamed grief of watch­ing day after day van­ish with­out my par­tic­i­pa­tion. About being ter­ri­bly aware that I am fuck­ing up, yet feel­ing par­a­lyzed to behave any differently.

 

Depres­sion and anx­i­ety are not usu­al states of being for me. My grimmest hours, hav­ing occurred in child­hood and ado­les­cence, have long been packed in memory’s base­ment – until now. Now should come as no sur­prise. I marched down those stairs, blew cob­webs aside, and flung the card­board gate wide open. How can I be caught unaware by what I have invoked?

 

As a beloved men­tor point­ed out, “The guilt, shame – even when ‘just’ writ­ing about it, you’re reliv­ing those moments all over again as you recall them on the page.” Fun as that sounds, I bolt­ed from the cave as soon as my res­i­den­cy end­ed. In per­son and online, I’ve been binge-social­iz­ing ever since, care­ful­ly posi­tion­ing one delight­ful dis­trac­tion after anoth­er between me and my writ­ing. My job.

 

Yet as active­ly as I resist, every day that I don’t return to the cave leaves me feel­ing more lost than the day before. Dis­tance sprawls between me and my work, vast acreage for self-doubt and fear to set up camp. Again I turn to Dani Shapiro, this time her reminder that a writer’s work is what will save her, even as she acknowl­edges the return won’t be easy.

 

The page is indif­fer­ent to us – no, worse. The page turns from us like a wound­ed lover. We will have to win it over, coax it out of hid­ing. Promise to do bet­ter next time. Apol­o­gize for our dis­re­gard. And then, we set­tle into the pat­tern that we know. Three pages. Two hours. A thou­sand words. We have wan­dered and now we are back. There is com­fort in the famil­iar. We can do this. Breathe in, breathe out. Once again, just as we’ve been doing all along.

 

So this will remain a qui­et place, friends, as I step away from the inter­nets. Know that the radio silence isn’t you; it’s me. I’m end­less­ly grate­ful for your kind­ness, yet it’s obvi­ous that as much as I admire the many peo­ple who suc­ceed in writ­ing their books while ful­ly engag­ing with the bright and shiny out­er world, I am not one of those peo­ple. I know only one way out of this, and that’s back to the cave.

 

The Cave