Writer on Writing

It’s a funny thing. I write about people, places, and times to keep them alive, preserve the feeling. And in so doing, I succeed in killing the emotions tied to them, within myself. They become neutralized in being set down on paper. The experience lived twice, for me. Whereas for the reader, it is always the first time. In setting the truth down, I feel liberated, as though I am fulfilling my purpose, but I always experience a sensation of sadness, of thinking upon places, times, and individuals from a distance, as facts devoid of the pain and rapture that once beset them. It is a saving grace, but also a tremendous grief. The loss of those feelings and only the memory of what love feels like without the sensation. How odd, how fascinating, even to me, the writer.

-wcg

2/20/2018