The dead afternoons we’d endured! The days without work, when we couldn’t write, when we couldn’t think of anything.
Blocked days, stalled days. Days like great marshes. When we’d lost hold of our projects. Of ourselves. When we were barely anything at all.
All those nothing days. Bogus days. All those days of deadends and wandering. All the days lived in lieu. Those days where we said to ourselves: tomorrow we might think. Tomorrow we might write. Those days, rising, when we knew we’d accomplish nothing. When we knew we were too thick-headed, too heavy-skulled to think anything worthwhile. When we knew straightaway that the day would be botched.
The day, ruined. How many days when we’d run up against impossibility. When we’d suffer the loss of the capacity for work. For the forward-momentum of work.
And who were we, without work? Who were we when we couldn’t think, couldn’t write? Who were we to be without being able to be able?
No talent to rely on. No ability to fall back upon. Always reinventing ourselves from nothing, every morning. Always lurching out of – what? What swamp? What mire? The swamp of ourselves! The mire of stupidity!
Fresh efforts. New attempts to rise. But battered down again. Hammered down again.
The fog in our heads. The mists passing through us. Where we really to achieve so little? Where we destined always to go so wrong?
No ability to rely on. No brilliance to bear us along. No world-shattering talent that might let us get on. That might let us see our project through to completion.
No more projects! Not even beginnings! Not even the ability to begin. Not even a first step. Not even movement. Not even today, let alone tomorrow.
Botched beginnings. No-beginnings. Failures again, and then again and again. Failures to launch, and again and again.
Failures of our work catching fire. Failures of our lives to catch fire. Failures of the work to hatch from our lives. Failures of our lives to hatch from our work.
For our lives to bear fruit. For our lives to be about something, rather than just living.
We want to be of some significance. We want to be biography-worthy. We want to be secondary-commentator-worthy. We want to be special-edition-of-a-journal worthy.
We want to be interview-worthy, at least. To be discussed-in-footnotes worthy …
Not to be no marks. Not to be nothings. Which of course we are.
Work in Progress 