My mom and I went tonight to see Joan Didion’s play, A Year of Magical Thinking. In my mind now, I am dead. A part of me is grey and dried up. Perhaps like leaves do, growing stale steadily, green only at the tip and wilting everywhere else.

And then, the feelings the play provoked are the same that keep me breathing and alive. I just don’t know what to do with them.

Around me, people are putting themselves to good use. My roommate is reading Joyce and Keats with genuine interest. The magnificent Lady J is giving wings to the children of her creativity, and I...don’t know what I am doing. Of course, there are always those people who seemingly do nothing but go to work, or sleep around but I try to pay the passionless little mind.

Anyways, I write…these little ditties all day long, scribble down feelings, sentences, and I don’t know what they mean. I set around and think about writing…or painting. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t…sometimes I start and get so antsy that I leave in a flurry and wander around Manhattan for hours. Or run out to Connecticut, set on the beach, and stare at the water.

I get this crazy urge to go. I want to sail and drive and move through space.
I dream of California and open water.
I dream of a childhood I can’t remember and wake up rushing to write it down before it slips away.
I want to write a great novel but I don't know my own story yet.
I wonder if I have to.