Capturing that elusiveness that slips through your fingers

[sienamystic]

I frequently wish a lot of things - if they were horses, I'd be running a dude ranch right now - but more and more often, I find myself wishing two things in particular. I wish I had a good command of many languages, and I wish I were a better writer. The two things that these wishes have in common, of course, is a desire for communication; I want to both understand other people, and make myself understandable to them. Tonight, for example, after listening to a friend talk about the fantastic date she had with a friend I introduced her to, I wish I could effectively capture the range of emotions I'm feeling right now: a secret delight that a good friend is possibly on the verge of something very important and life-changing, or at the least, very positive, a slight anxiety about the response our mutual dear friend will have, as she was potentially interested in the same guy, a solid happiness that the people I like like each other, a flush of pride at the compliment that my friend paid me of being the even, centered person that soothes other people (and at the same time, a rueful tinge of irritation - I'm never the exciting one, oh no. I'm the earth mother who grounds and centers everybody else while never doing anything out of the ordinary). All these things and more are running through me, and I wish I could lasso them and use them to write a story that makes other people say, "That's just how I feel, how wonderful that she captured it." And yet, the words fall apart in my hands. Dialogue that sounds meaningful and real in my head stutters and falls into cliche when put on paper. Things that should be universal become trite.

We spend so much time surrounded by people, and yet, all these hidden things seethe under the blankness of our foreheads that no-one ever guesses at. That's what great writing does; it makes us realize how alike we all are under the skin.