I am dedicated to this blog. I think about it frequently because the words and I have a special relationship. There is a slow dance that we do around the room, it is the kind of thing where your partner just knows where to go, they move with you with little or no prompting.
At least that is how it feels most of the time, but every now and then it just doesn’t work. We step on each others toes, trip over our own feet and the dance loses the graceful presence it once had and disintegrates into some macabre spiral of death.
It is like watching a couple of marionnettes in a puppet show. You know that they are dancing, but not because of what you see from them. The reason is that there are elements surrounding them that make it obvious as to what they are supposed to be doing.
In my case that means that the words do not flow from my fingertips with any sort of ease. They show up because I have pounded them out of my skull, forced them out the way you squeeze the last bit of toothpaste out of the bottle. You squish, and squeeze, pound and push and inevitably you find that last little bit, but it didn’t come easily.
It makes me insane because I usually have a decent command of the language, but at moments like this it reminds me of moments when I have been in foreign countries where I only spoke a few words of the native tongue. The people I tried to communicate would look at me, smile like I was some kind of child as they tried to understand what I wanted. I am not a baby, I am not a toddler. I can communicate effectively, but when it is taken from me I feel like I am being punished.
It is a nasty, punitive measure that leaves me frustrated and sometimes flustered. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does it leaves a mark.
I have tried to identify the reasons why this happens, looked for symptoms and signs so that I could be prepared for it and have failed each time.
My failure is frustrating, but it is not daunting. I am too stubborn, maybe even too arrogant to give up. I can’t accept it so I keep pounding away until the mental block is shattered and broken. I am relentless and I know from experience that I will get beyond it.
But the experience is never enjoyable.
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