When I was seven, I was obsessed with Pascal, the little French boy from the children's book The Red Balloon. I read the book over and over, getting lost in the photographs of Paris in black and white. And if I could have gotten my grubby hands on Pascal’s buckle shoes, well, life as I knew it would have been complet.
Skewed sense of fashion aside, I loved the story. I instinctively gravitated toward this young loner boy who seemed to look at life through an impermeable pane of glass, whose closest companion was a balloon that refuses to abandon him.
Many of us long for such a balloon, gleaming and red, hovering, waiting patiently until we can return to it once again, a giddy reunion even if the separation lasts only a moment or two. A balloon of constancy, a balloon that will stay with us even when we want to run screaming in the other direction.
A balloon that whispers, "I will not leave you”, even when we practically insist on being left.
This summer I discovered a wonderfully terrible thing.
My writing is my red balloon.
Now, I am not a summer person. Credit my wintry Russian roots, but a relentlessly hot and glaring sun makes me want to run screaming for the shelter of a cool, dimly lit cafe. Give me a friendly conversation with the occasional stranger or barista—all for the low price of an iced coffee and a muffin—any day.
This summer I was doing just fine, day after heat-and-humidity-filled-day, dazed and confused, trying to work on my writing but compulsively checking my email and IMing with just about everybody I knew. Yes, I was doing just fine in my distraction and avoidance until my friend Carrie had to go ahead and ruin it all for me.
Carrie sent me an essay on Writing and Procrastination that suggested keeping a journal. When the eyes glaze over and the fingers begin to itch and travel north of the keyboard, you run straight into the loving arms of your journal.
The idea, the essay maintained, is not to abandon your writing. When you get stuck or blocked, your journal (which can be about anything and everything) will soothe away your restless fear of the blank pages ahead, keeping the flow of writing going until you are ready to return to your project of the day.
It works.
I guess I’ve always pictured writing as more of an elusive and inconsistent balloon that swept me off my feet when the mood struck and then disappeared unceremoniously without warning or a Dear Jill letter on my pillow.
But the truth is, writing is no longer as fickle or dramatic as I once imagined. As a matter of fact, I've discovered since keeping a journal that it’s often annoyingly faithful, available night and day. It’s gleaming and red, hovering, waiting patiently until I return.
So now that I know the writing will always be there waiting for me, the question is: how do I spice things up and keep the drama of the attempt to write going?
I'm thinking maybe a pair of buckle shoes.
