Words to Winter

The muse will arrive any second, now.

There’s something I don’t like to say of myself, an admission of weakness or to an aspect of my personality that could be perceived, perhaps rightly so, as superficial, one-dimensional, or lacking in intellectual rigor—but then, I was never particularly intellectual to begin with, so what am I holding on to?

Either that paragraph was sufficient to pique your interest, or hopefully it at least has bored you sufficient that you no longer have the strength of spirit to flee, so I’ll make the admission and accept the consequences to my pride: I am a man of action.

No, not that kind of “man of action.” I’m not someone who gets things done—although I fear I’ve made an inadvertent addendum to my one-entry list of foibles. So there are two things I don’t like to say of myself. One is that I’m not a man of action, and the other is that I am a man of action.

That is to say, I think in actions. When I write, I write actions. My shortcomings as a writer seem, in my estimation, related to this inability to think in a loftier form. I don’t think in emotions, or in connections, be it people to people or people to things; I don’t think about how things came to be the way they are, or the subtext surrounding them. I just see the actions. The girl stands in the classroom, feeling awkward before the students who are feeling almost as awkward at the impromptu assessment they’re giving one another, and what do I see? I see the flushed face, the rocking nervously from foot to foot; I hear rustling of clothes from restless children; I maybe see the brilliant yellow light beaming in through the wall-sized window on the left-hand side where the sun is just rising above the rooftop and away from view, but its light yet spills out on the world and onto the fresh young faces of the students.

I see pleated skirts on girls; for the boys, red ties tucked over wool vests. I envision the dark-brown leather of girls’ mary-janes and their long, delicate fingers with meticulous, file-shaped nails. The boys have short haircuts that spike up in front, reminding me of Happy Days the TV series for some reason.

What do I not see? What do I not consider? Well, maybe why the student is there in front of the class in the first place. How did this come to be? What does she actually think about it beyond the simple, superficial anxiety of standing before a class? Why is her hair, as I see it, long and black and straight and glossy? It needn’t be, as it is, so perfect and gleaming, but say it is indeed perfect as aforementioned: now what? Young teens have a million petty problems, every one of them enormous and barely surmountable; they’ve got dates and zits, popularity and friendships, drugs and uncontrollable lust and weight problems and awful but well-meaning parents. . . but me?

All I see is anime.

So that brings us to winter. The season is bound to whip up frosty sensations to anyone who manages to stand outside long enough to feel it, be those sensations emotional or physical. The air, crisp; the landscape, strangely and beautifully bare. What do people think of when they stand before the dawning light, hoping to catch its rays for a bit of warm respite from the frigid air? What do people think?

Well, one man thinks in music, and here’s his take.

I listened to that, and it’s a beautiful little piece. No vocals, just the expression of one man’s emotional response to the season.

I’m a writer, though. What can I offer up to the world that might express, in some manner of poetic variety, my perceptions of those utterly still moments in those cold, cold days? Well, it’s mostly visual.

I see myself standing on my front porch, a bit of a deck that Pop built. A good fifteen people could probably stand on there, though their shoulders might touch a little. We live in an area that still knows animals and trees and grass, so I’d walk over to the part of the porch that extends beyond the house, to see into the back yard. I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but it’s not particularly effective against the cold. The wind isn’t blowing, luckily. If it were I’d have to retreat indoors for sure, but since it’s not, the worst wind comes either from my own movement, or from the constant frosty breaths of air whistling into my nose, biting at the rim of the nostrils. The sun’s up, bright and brilliant, but virtually useless, as though there is an agreement between the winter and the sun, that it not penetrate at this time with its heat.

The dead leaves on the ground seem to me, in the cold, to somehow be stiff. I have the impression that if I touched one, it would shatter like brittle crystals of hoarfrost on a blade of grass. A boot comes down, and it crunches, crumples asunder.

It’s quieter than usual. The cicadas are, as a blessing, silent. It almost feels like I’m the only person in existence. Narcissists must feel like this a lot. Anyway, a wind rouses lazily, and I turn and flee back inside, flesh tingling with sudden warmth as I enter the heated confines of this modern shelter.

So that’s what I have. It means nothing, really. Descriptions, contrived impressions that are barely my own, and even the ones that are fully of myself are expressed with such strangled effort that the final results seem to hardly resemble the originals.

And don’t tell me it’s simply because I was not inspired to write the piece, or that I wasn’t feeling anything at the moment. A good writer, as a good actor, can and must will the emotions, must needs seek furiously the muse and take it bodily in both hands, by the nape, or by the throat if necessary, and wring the poetry from its reticent, indifferent form.

What a shame that the prospect of writing a poetic description of winter only reminds me of my shortcomings.

Post-script: I envision the concept of a “muse” as a long, ferret-like creature. I don’t know why. I think it’s related to Jak and Daxter.