Faith is not necessary

It is real and does not need imagining or inventing. Ted Hughes, an insightful twat, wrote in a letter "The impression of enormous energy having been exerted is really the battle you've had with yourself." He was of course referring to a day spent writing and not writing. Sometimes I hear people chastise themselves for living and fearing and struggling despite a lack of external demons. There are no wars here, no fire-breathing crushing oppressors, not here on the Light Continent, the Lucky Country.

I have spent some years in reflection on this topic, wondering just what is this invisible burden that would press me into the ground. My Grandparents, now they had external demons; Changi & Shanghai POW camps, crossing oceans, learning languages, the memory of the depression and the tangible loss of loved ones to that mad world violence. What is my struggle? My father was the child of immigrants perhaps that was his. My mother had her own socially constructed struggle but mine, mine is newly formed in words.

It is not new to be at war with yourself. This is not my invention. I'm putting down the burden of wondering at struggling over intangibles and that creeping shame that it is not right to feel battleworn when I have employment and such food and shelter that I have enough to share and still grow fat and be warm. My high quality sheets do not help with my manuscript. My fresh salad and chicken poached with herbs picked from the deck do not help with my manuscript.

I am exhausted and worn flat with attempting to manufacture strings of words. My sentences will not run. My paragraphs sit opposed to each other. The alphabet is ready but scrambled, bastard undecipherable code, and all the while I am raging against this. I am raging for this. I am not imagining the anxiety, joy, hatred, frustration, exhaustion, terror and effort required just to think about writing. This invisible battle is mine and its real.