September 29, 2004
About Writing
Today, I'm trying to write myself out of fatigue. I'm trying to do anything it takes to just feel like the Renee I am when I'm not having an RA day.
It's a chillier day, a gray fall noon in Ohio that reminds me that summer is over. I tend to like these days, I get a lot done, and think of the world in terms of letters then words then sentences on a page. Gray fall days are for the imagination, for writing or for reading a book, for taking myself outside this world and into that creative space I crave.
When I enter the realm of my creative self, my RA is not longer a factor. I become the Renee that I know I am without worry about the outer shell that deals with fatigue and ailments and swelling. It is the core essence of who I am; I put to paper thoughts and ideas, imagining characters and situations and paint a landscape in words.
Maybe this is why I write stories; they free me from my present self and take me on a journey of discovery. I'm currently working on a story called "Theme and Variation," which is grounded in my experience in ballet. Even though I can't physically be in that world, when I write about it, when I create the world of the story and the characters it is real to me all over again. Here's a bit of what I've been working on:
"Lucinda Gates was a ballet mistress. She was a tall slender woman whose hair I never saw. She kept it pulled back and tightly knotted under one of a collection of exotically colored silk carves. It had the effect of making her head look much bigger than the rest of her body, as if her chest would collapse at any moment, sending her head rolling off her long, thin neck. Her features were severe: cheekbones that stood like regal plateaus over caved, sunken cheeks; a slim nose that was slightly crooked in profile; large, rolling eyes caked with dark shadow, liner and mascara. Her threadlike, china-red lips were polished to a high sheen with lipstick and gloss, giving them the look of a scrap of patent leather. Lucinda Gates was scary; there was no two ways about it."
I hope that when it is all said and done, that I'm remembered not for having RA, but for writing stories. RA can be a footnote that reads, she never let it stop her from doing what she loved the most.
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