It’s a blank screen. How on Earth do you make a blank screen interesting?
What do you mean, make a blank screen interesting? That’s on you, man! Haven’t you always said that a good writer ought to be able to make writing about a single brick on a brick wall interesting?
That’s different.
How so?
Well, for one, a brick has texture. It has history…
Screens have texture. They have history.
It’s not the same. The point is, I’m staring at the screen here, the stupid cursor keeps blinking and I have no idea what words to put here.
If you don’t know what to write, why bother writing at all?
Because it’s been nearly two weeks and I haven’t written anything, and what I wrote before that wasn’t even about Korea so it hardly counts. I wanted to write every day. Then at least every week. Now even that goal is fading into the rearview mirror. It’s so difficult for me to muster the motivation to do anything these days, it’s hard to write when I have nothing important to write about.
I mean, I think the Christmas post was important.
Important to me, at least. Not sure about anyone else.
If you want to write about Korea, man, then write about Korea. What’s new?
That’s just it. There’s nothing new. I live here. Every day is just…routine at this point.
But it’s routine in Korea! That’s got to count for something, right?
I’m not so sure about that. But fine. Here’s my routine. My alarm rings at 7:00 every day. I stagger up, turn on the hot water, and shower. I silently give thanks every day that I have a real shower and not a freezing wet room like some of my friends have gotten. Then I dress and I’m out the door for work.
The days are cold, and, if I’m lucky, clear. If I’m not, the fine dust hangs all over the city in a thick haze, and every passerby on the street is wearing a mask. Some days I am, too. Other days a thick, wet mist hangs low over the city, sometimes edging all the way over into a chill rain. I huddle in my coat, turn on my Revolutions podcast, and walk through the streets to work as Mike Duncan’s soothing voice tells me the stories of long-ago wars and the passionate, life-and-death struggles of men and women most of the world has long since forgotten. I pass an old man cleaning the sidewalk, a young woman always hurrying somewhere off to the west, pass a young man who walks too slowly every morning, stop and greet my cat in his little nest under the tree behind the seafood place, wait to cross the street, step in the same pothole again just as I do every morning, and then squeeze through the gate and walk up the front path into the school.
I make my way through the cold* and dim** hallways up to my office on the third floor. I unlock it, turn on the lights, turn on the heat, think for a moment, then turn the heat up a couple of degrees, and walk down to my desk, shrugging off my bag and my coat as I do. I drop into my chair, rest my eyes for a moment, and then log in.
Work will pass by slowly. If I’m lucky, I’ll see perhaps one other human being in the school while I’m here. Everyone else is on vacation. In the meantime, I fill my time by alternating between writing a syllabus and lesson plans for the semester to come, daydreaming about my trip to Japan, and finding long boring things to read on the Internet (did you know that the US State Department has a ton of archives available online? I’ve been reading a lot about the Korean war lately).
The day will pass, the sun will set, the dust and rain will continue to hang, and gradually the hallways outside become even more quiet and more dark. At 4:40, I’ll stand up, stretch, shrug on my coat, and shut off the lights and the heat. I walk home as Duncan tells me of the failed Presidency of Francisco Madero and the rebellion of Victor Huerta who toppled him (“Pity poor Mexico! So far from God and so close to the United States!”), back up to my apartment, where I take a few minutes to simply lie on the bed and muster the motivation to do something.
Some days, I’ll cook. Some days, I won’t. I’ll debate trying to write something. Most days, I won’t. I’ll try to read. Some days I’ll actually go to meet someone for dinner. Eventually, night will come, I’ll toss and turn for a while until I sleep, and the next day, I do it again. Those are my days.
See? You wrote a lot! Except…there’s nothing really about you in there, is there? Where’s the joy, the excitement that you had earlier in the year?
…no, no I don’t think I’m ready to share about that, yet. Suffice to say that life is harder than it was four months ago, and I have so much more sympathy for people with depression. I’ll get back to myself again. I’ll have energy, and the motivation to do things. I’ll have confidence in myself, and I’ll be happy with myself. Hell, it’s possible that this is jut my suspected seasonal affective disorder – always mildly present – just gone into overdrive because I’m away from home, I’m grappling with the failure of my relationship, and I’m isolated from everything I’ve ever known before. As time passes and the air grows warmer and the days grow longer I’ll bounce back.
Sometime.
But not yet.
Until then, I’m just going to stare at this stupid blinking cursor and try to figure out what to do to make it go away.
*”I like the cold. Nips the bones. Keeps the heart from overheating.” – Ebenezer Scrooge
**”I like the dark. Darkness is cheap – and that is tonic to the sensible man.” – Also Ebenezer Scrooge
Gwangju Dreaming 