I Punctuate Myself

 I am, in large measure, the selfsame prose I write. I unroll myself in sentences and paragraphs. I punctuate myself. In my arranging and rearranging of images I'm like a child using newspaper to dress up as a king, and in the way I create rhythm with a sense of words I'm like a lunatic adorning my hair with dried flowers that are still alive in my dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet, ch. 193

I think this passage jumped out at me because I've begun to write again. Now that I've made it to the other side of two student trips and Ramadan and the semester is coming to a close I can envision longer stretches of time when I can lose myself in writing. I've made myself a promise that I'm going to finish the epics book this summer, inshallah. Of course, I've made myself this promise before and failed (as I do in most things). Just thinking about it brings up all the insecurities that have plagued my writing for years. If I had half the confidence I seem to exude on a daily basis I would have finished four books by now. Instead, I faff around and never seem to  accomplish much of anything. I blame being busy (and it's not as if I'm not busy), but mainly I think it's a lack of confidence; and finishing the book, and its inevitable rejection, would simply justify and re-enforce all my profound self-loathing. To a certain degree I suppose Pessoa may have faced the same demons, with the obvious difference that he produced thousands and thousands of pages, both prose and poetry, the core of which was eventually turned into The Book of Disquiet a few decades after this death. The key to that statement being "a few decades after his death," of course. A few decades - if not years - after my death my memory and legacy will be as cold as two day old ashes in the wood stove.

Oddly, after saying that, one of the things I'm struggling with right now is another writing project. I've been kicking around this project that I've been calling "Ramadan in Winter," which I've discussed previously, and lately it's starting to come into view. I think in the end it's going to be more of a personal memoir of faith and converting at an older death and ruminations on aging - as compared to my original idea of a book solely on what Islam means as you age. I've started writing a few notes, but I need to keep at at arm's length until next fall.