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Method of Mancy

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Nov. 13 – a letter

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I spin the pen around my fingers. Around and around and around, stop. Flip it the other way, stop. Click-click open. Click-click closed. Click-click open. Then closed. Open again. Closed. Another flip for good measure. Click-click open. I push the ball point into the paper, but then I hesitate, leaving just a smudge where real letters should be. 

Usually the writing comes out of me whether I want it to or not. It pushes through everything else like a tsunami, demanding to make itself known–it’s an involuntary movement, like breathing. But today, nothing. Just another click-click, click-click, marking the percussion of my indecision.

It’s not that I don’t know what to write, because there’s plenty. More like I don’t know where to start–what’s okay to say or not. I’ve long lived in the habit of writing letters I never send, but this one is actually destined to see the inside of a post office. Which, of course, means I’m completely stuck.

This isn’t the only place I’m blocked, though. My fingers dance up and down the neck of my guitar in familiar patterns, but I don’t take any new steps, don’t build any new melodies. Even the old ones feel dry and foreign; they don’t resonate anymore. I try to sing along, but the words sound ridiculous, trivial. I can’t even remember what it was like to feel that way, but I don’t have anything else to play. I get the hook of an unfinished song stuck in my head, reverberating around inside and mocking me with its carefree, lovey-dovey tone: the joys of falling in love, the game of flirting back and forth. Ugh. The guitar goes back on the rack.

Click-click. Click-click. Click-click. 

I could always re-write it, I guess. If it’s shit. If it comes out as stupid as I feel. I certainly have plenty of paper to figure it out, to try to explain without droning on and on. Plenty of time to scratch out phrases that sounded better in my head. Plenty of space to mold my tone into something inoffensive, something light on the heart. Yes, I have plenty of time. More time than I need, more time than I want. 

I flip the pen around again. Around and around and around. Click-click open. Click-click closed. Click-click open. Finally, I push the ball point back into the paper, and take a shaky, microscopic leap of faith.

♫

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