Write

Hi. I’m Desirée.

One Saturday in New York I attended a play by one of my favorite playwrights and starring one of my favorite actors. The production was decent, not the best work of either of those favorites, but enjoyable. About forty-five minutes into the show, I was struck by an impulse. A more poetic sap might have called it a “lightning bolt of inspiration.” Whatever you call it, something very pressing occurred to me.

I lurched forward in my seat and went into my purse, digging blindly in the dark for my keys. I would normally scoff at such disruptive behavior, but the portly gentleman to my left had been burping—audibly—through the first half of the play and his date giggling after each belch. After a fleeting moment of consideration for those two I dismissed etiquette and conducted the search as quietly as possible. I successfully retrieved my keys from my ever-messy purse and uncapped the mini-sharpie I always keep on the ring. You never know when you’ll need a sharpie. That night in the dark theater I needed it to inscribe the word “write” on the back of my hand. It was a reminder, like “buy rabbit food” or “call Arnaud” or anything else one might forget. I wrote “write” —sloppily—on my right hand. I thought I would notice it there more because I am right-handed.

Something happened that made me want to remember to write. Ironically, I cannot remember what that trigger was—perhaps because the play simply wasn’t memorable; perhaps because I was already two helpings of Jack Daniel’s deep—I don’t know. But the trick worked. I sat down in front of a screen and wrote from 2 am to 3 am on May 2, 2010. I told myself I would brand my hand with “write” every day.
The next morning (by morning I mean 2 pm) I woke and looked at the faded letters on my hand and smiled. Because it was still working.

“Write.” The thing that terrifies me. The endeavor that makes me cry just to talk about. What my mother tells me I am meant to do (besides have babies). I have to remember to do it.

Make a pot of coffee and write. Go to the Park on a laptop’s battery life and write. Crack open a beer and write. Hike to the Harlem Starbucks and write. (I know, even Harlem has a Starbucks or five.) After the distractions of online-shopping and making drink dates with friends are all taken-care-of, I sit down to write something. It doesn’t matter what it is or whether it is good or abominable. Sitting down to write is a triumph.

So here it is: my latest project. You will quickly learn of my obsession with projects. Nearly every week I have a new hobby, obsession, or pursuit. As an uncomfortable but typical member of an over-educated, under-achieving generation, I constantly seek new verbs to fill my time and life with meaning. This blog will chronicle the fruits of an insatiable panic to do something, my unending search for the next verb.

And that verb, for today anyway, is

“write.”

Write.

Happy, Mom?

Happy, Universe?

Happy, Desirée?

Yeah, sure, happy. Just…don’t make me talk about it…(sniffle)…okay?