I can I know

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Just start. I’ve been telling myself that for the past 20-something years.

When I was 6, my big brother and I found typewriters outside on the curb near our building. One baby blue, one black. Big, heavy, shiny metal things, in perfect working condition, with little ribbons of ink and “whiteout”. We were thrilled. We brought them in, carried them up to our 6^th floor apartment, and started writing.

I wrote my first poem as a first grader. It was terrible. Everybody loved it.

I loved it too. Finally, a thing I was good at. My first poems were full of happy little rhymes, carefully constructed sentences, and complete nonsense. I wrote what I thought a poem was supposed to be.

“There isn’t a lot in the world that’s mine, except for this gift I received one time.”

My first ever, one-finger-at-a-time, type-written poem went on to describe a small, precious book in which the fictional me would write down her deepest secrets and desires. In reality, I never kept any sort of diary as a kid. I was deathly afraid that if I did, someone would read it. And then they’d know I was crazy. I also worried that someone might read it after I died. To prevent that happening, to prevent anyone, ever, from knowing what went on inside my head, I made the conscious choice to write only perfect bullshit.

“This is my diary, that I treasure. This is my diary, I’ll treasure forever.”

The fact that I’ve committed this god-awful poem to memory is a testament only to the fact that some things stick with us forever.

And then, I discovered writer’s block.

And perfectionism.

All of my elementary school creative writing assignments were graded with A’s, scratch-and-sniff stickers, and smiley faces. “Wow!”, “Did you write this yourself?”, “Can I share this one with the class?”. I loved it, and I learned to expect perfection. The teachers never taught me, never critiqued my work.  For an ultra-orthodox all-girl’s yeshiva, I was pretty good.

The bar was very, very low.

In 6^th grade, I wrote a poem that was, essentially, about writer’s block, although I was not yet familiar with the term. Tasked with an in-class assignment, it was myself against an empty page and an empty brain. Just start, I told myself. I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing, I had to write words.

So words I wrote. I wrote about my inability to get started, how I didn’t know what to write, and how this was becoming a common experience for me. I wrote about how the hardest part was simply getting started, and how once I did manage to start, then the ideas would come.

I wish I had this one memorized as well, I’d add in a couple of its most excellent lines, but sadly, I do not. And while I do still own the actual black and white notebook it is written in, in perfect rhyming couplets of course, that notebook is currently on the other side of the world from me.

Or, more accurately, I am on the other side of the world from it.

Just start, I told myself.

Just start.