A month into a changed life, and I begin to settle into the gift I’ve been given. The simplicity and hard work of a pared down dedication. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, I work on myself as much as my words. A story almost done (I wrestle with the last paragraph like Jacob with the angel), an article pitched. In the process, I see more. My own physical presentation included. I look at myself the way I look at everything else. (“Don’t worry. I’m a writer. I see everything.” I really need to get that Graham Greene quote right.)
Various distinctions emerge. Style versus sensibility, for instance. The removed artfulness of self-presentation versus the immediacy of hungry engagement. An awareness of the dance of social interaction even as one participates. So, on the one hand, I pull projects together, sit long hours absorbed in my brain, chiseling words out of thin air. On the other, I defiantly reclaim my physical self. I read The Sartorialist in that eery postmodern way, in which text consists of image as much as word. (Is there really a difference?) Acutely aware of its limitations, I work to hone style in the world as well as on a page. This is not easy to do with no money, but it is not impossible either. Indeed, money often gets in the way. Makes a person think style can be purchased instead of created.
There is a discipline involved, certainly. But it is not a matter of control. It is a matter of creation. One does not control chaos. One engenders order within it. The insides and outsides of cosmos.
Dawn Aberg 