I was traipsing around in Target about six months ago--you know, walking slowly past the pen and paper isle like I do. I was ready to purchase another book to write in that I probably won't finish. I'm not all that good at finishing things--I usually need a flame or a blade or a threat. But, since I'm very good at starting things, I thought a frivolous purchase was in order. Other than the typical criteria--small so I can carry it with me, paper that I like--I was looking for something I could keep and, when I look at it, would inspire me to write. Typical. The book that caught my eye had a quote on the front: "We write to taste life twice." $7.49--receipt in the bag? I'll take it, thanks. Ah, the breeze greets me and tells me that I'm going home to write.
We write to taste life twice. Oh boy--indigestion. So now I'm a cow (were they calling me fat?). If you ask me, we write and create, we read and learn, we eat and drink, we risk adventure outside of the living room--whether we know it or not--to avoid living the rest of our lives with this terrible lingering indigestion. Memories don't just float away, they only get buried and cause problems later after a life spent reacting to the things that happened decades ago.
For me it's writing. I can't just let stuff happen; I have to think about it--put it together the best I know how; I have to know what I think about it; I must measure every stupid little thing (that everyone else has long forgotten about by now) against my labored-for rose and green colored glasses through which I see the world. The lens is rimmed with jade which fades into a light sapphire with pink rose in the center. There's some gray spots here and there, but that's pretty much what I see. They say (or so I was at least musing) that as we get older, the gray spots on our lenses get bigger--while when we were young, we were always so sure. Perhaps this will be the case for me--we'll see when I get there. In my few years, despite the lingering gray spots, things tend to get clearer. Perhaps it's because I'm okay with the things I will never understand--I grow content with my created limits.
My glasses keep acquiring new and more nuanced colors because I keep reading and living and learning new things. People who I thought I had figured out surprise me with the fact that they are individuals and can be whomever they wish despite my hasty analyses of them. I have trouble forgetting things that most people didn't even notice--like someone who did something selfish yesterday but today shows a tender-heartedness that makes me look gristly and cruel when yesterday I was the nice one. It keeps changing--I have to take it up again, and roll it around in my mouth and pen what, now, it tastes like.
For me it's writing. All put their hands to something. Not all have paint or paper or craft, but all have glasses. How can it be enough to see just one color--to taste each day in the life once? Maybe it is enough, or should be enough; but I can't quiet my mind. So I write. Some days I'll never want to taste again, but they still come up as indigestion. As I pop a Tums and let the chalk make my mouth all gritty--even then I must write about what Tums taste like. The words help flavor my glasses further.
I even get to re-flavor the things I thought I knew. Scripture is supposed to be my world view, but even my view of that is tainted. As I engage in spiritual discipline, as I allow my soul to be shaped by prayer, even the lenses through which I'm supposed to see look clearer. The lens inside my eye gets an adjustment to its curvature. When this happens, I also must write. I am attacked by flashbacks and distant memories that now look different. I find myself no longer bewildered by things I didn't--couldn't--understand at the age of five. And while childhood brings many stressful memories of wanting to understand, I can lay them to rest now that I do. Writing itself can be an act of forgiveness. How will I portray my characters? Even though they are real people who no doubt would want to defend themselves, I only have my eyes through which to write. Will I be gentle or exact subtle revenge? Will I write something I hope they will never read? Or will I take my opportunity to taste what happened through renewed vision--through life tasted twice?
There are other ways to taste life twice. I'm just one who writes. Most folks benefit plainly from getting older--from dealing with screaming kids and eventually the same arthritis pain that made their mother crabby for the last ten years. Now she can rest easy in forgiveness--or more so the ones who have the pleasure of forgiving her. A man will get to set his hand to a task that will writhe his muscles so that he will see what his father did for him; a woman understand the grind of a thousand menial tasks a day chipping away at peace of mind. Pieces of advice that were useless years ago suddenly turn to gold in a time of need. There are legions of opportunities to taste life twice--even three, even four times. And who knows, after all this buffet style eating, maybe by the end it will taste sweet.
Often times, in the end, whether it tasted sweet or bitter will depend upon these series of lens adjustments. Perhaps I make this sound easy. Maybe I'm naive enough to believe that the purchase of a notebook I won't finish can make the wear and tear dissolve into who-knows where. I used to be. But during the course of living at times without anything even to re-taste because I didn't get to taste it the first time, I've had quite a few lens adjustments. Without the things that a nice guy wouldn't forget to give his dog or without any emotional fresh air, who could see anything? Because of this, I hold close a piece of advice a friend lent me from a friend that lent it to her: "Live first, then write." We can't taste life twice if we didn't taste it the first time.
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