writers block

I wonder how people write. I wonder how they look at something and understand it so intrinsically that they can do the impossible and describe it to me. How do you describe a sunset? How do you describe loss? How do you show me something that isn’t there?

I wonder how people write, because for me it’s like pulling teeth. It’s the unbearable stagnancy of seeing or feeling, but not being able to show. I see the pain in my head and feel it in my heart, but how do you describe something as personal as pain? How can you explain to me the feeling of looking out into a crowd where your father should be and knowing he’s just down the street at the McLarens bar instead? How do you describe the beauty of art? How do you describe colour? The feeling of a violin picking up tempo with the swell of the wind coming from the back row? I wonder if it’s something I’ll ever be able to do. Show people feelings.

I wonder how people write, because everything is so indescribable. Sitting across from your family at Christmas, watching as your sister drops cranberry sauce on her sweater seconds after she laughed at my father for doing the same. Hitting black ice on the highway and feeling the fickle control you thought you held slowly slide out from under you and suddenly you’re at the mercy of nothing but the randomness of the universe. The sun trickling through the leaves. A frog on a Lilypad. A child's Gofundme for their cancer treatment. The world around me is full of feelings I could never hope to convey. And I suppose that’s the beauty of it, or the sadness of it.

I wonder how people write, because I look back and see everything I couldn’t say. At the end of this, I reread and edit until it’s nothing but a shadow of what I’d meant for you to understand. How can you make someone understand? How can you ensure that what you wanted to say is perfectly conveyed so that people know you felt, and you tried, and it was beautiful and painful. I’m looking at myself through a pane of glass, screaming for me to understand.

I wonder how people can write, because at the end of the day what is there to understand?