“OMG, Death Again!”

Three times in three days readers have asked me why I write so much about death. First, let me thank you for reading me, and taking the time to ask me anything about what I write. I really appreciate it.

I’ve thought a great deal about what you asked. In a twist of verbal hair-splitting that might make even Bill Clinton envious (remember his “It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is?), I’d say that I don’t write about death – but rather about the prospect of it. Of actual death I have, as yet, no experience, thank goodness. But of thinking about it (puzzling, worrying, fearing it) I do have  experience, so really I’m only writing according to that time-tested creative writing teacher advice: Write about what you know.

Still, I can see that this might be a distinction without a difference as you glance at  my latest offering in your email inbox (or glance, at least, at the title) while sipping your morning coffee, hoping only for a peaceful start to what will likely be another frenetic day. “OMG, death again!” I can almost hear you saying – as those of you who are former smokers (as I am) reach for that no longer existent pack of the “cancer sticks” that probably brought your own death forward by years – even though you gave them up decades ago.

OMG, death again. I have to admit there’s some truth in it, as I look over the titles of some of my Substack posts (the titles only, I wouldn’t dare read the actual posts this early in the day): “Happiness of Age or Vigor of Youth,” “I See Where This Is Heading,” “What, Me Worry?” and the unforgettable “Sunday Morning,” which prompted three dear Facebook friends to message me with the numbers of suicide hotlines when I posted it on FB one Sunday morning last spring. Thank you so much for reaching out; I now have those numbers on speed dial – though I haven’t actually felt the need to call them – and with your loving support, perhaps never will.

I do feel it’s only right that I also point to some of the other pieces which counterbalance the death ones – OK, only one which really seems to fit the bill, but one is more than none! –  “No One Dies,” written before my launch into Substack, at the request of a friend who even then suggested I dwelt too much on death, and requested a piece in which “No One Dies.” I was rather proud that I could write one – almost, anyway: She pointed out to me that even in that one, someone dies, a death which crept in unnoticed by me. Almost unnoticed. After all, I do have a brand to think about (and at least a few readers who actually look forward to the death ones – I’m sure).

So to those of you who feel that I deal too much with death, I vow to try to try to write something optimistic once in a while. But really, it’s time we all woke up to the fact that it’s not “if”, but “when” – and we might as well face it!

Then there are perhaps those among you who wonder why I write so much about personal things which, in a polite world, should probably remain secret. “Does he really think we all need to read about that?!” Such pieces as ”Virginity,” or “Bee Sting; Heart Ache,” or “I Speak It – For Those Who Dared Not.” And a few others, further down the list, which I won’t link to because, Oh dear …

Why do I share these? Not to shock, surely. Not that anything I could write would shock – being a conventional – a “square” – guy, unique only as everyone is unique. Perhaps my purpose in sharing these pieces is not to reveal but to discover; not to show to others, but to pin down for myself, who and what I am. What better way to find out what I think than to write it. And once I’ve written it … Well, sharing it seems almost an obligation, because surely everyone is eager to know my thoughts.

I wrote a piece a while ago about why I write, considering the odds against making much of a stir by doing it. The title of that piece was, in a tour de force of concision, “Why?” I’ll conclude this piece with a few further thoughts along those lines.

I’ve come to realize that the best part of writing is doing it.

Before, there’s the fear that I won’t have anything to say, or won’t have the tools (that is, the talent) to say it if I do. After, there’s the disappointment that it’s not quite as good as I’d hoped it would be, or that the world (even the smallest subset of it) doesn’t appreciate what I’ve written. Fear and disappointment: not the best feelings to surround something you’re attempting.

But while I’m doing it: oh, how marvelous! – sometimes – not always – but often enough. Soaring out of this life into that other, in which words sort into pleasing combinations, like the magic of an online game, and make a phrase that dances – and then another – and then, sometimes, another – until there are paragraphs and pages that get at, maybe sort of, what I’d planned.

Or maybe not what I’d planned at all, but gone places (taken me places) I had no idea of till I arrived. A transcendence, which for a little while takes up all the space there is for everything, is timeless, is a pleasure greater than orgasm. IS orgasm, in a way, since it builds and builds to a release that takes my breath away. Not every time, but often enough to be worth the risk of fear and disappointment; often enough to make the discipline of sitting in the chair worth it, even when nothing’s coming. Because without the “butt in the chair,” as a writer friend says, even when nothing’s happening, nothing happens.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t crave appreciation – which means, really, praise. Who doesn’t? And I’d be lying if I said I looked forward every morning to the work. It is work, by the way, like any work, and takes discipline – all the harder to muster when no one’s asking you to do it, or paying you to, and hence telling you you have to.

So, no, it’s not the work I look forward to, but the magic, which, when it happens, makes all the work and fear and disappointment irrelevant, makes drugs and sex obsolete, puts everything in its place and makes the world stop wobbling on its axis.

That magic doesn’t last, of course. Nothing that good could. Youth doesn’t; orgasm doesn’t; nor life either (Ta-da! Death again). And so it fades, and back come the fear, the disappointment. But, once felt at all, memory of it lingers, and the hope for its return persists. It may be long or short in coming back, no telling. The butt may be tired, indeed, of the chair before it does. But, oh, I know it will. It will! It always has eventually. And how grand it will be when it does once again.

That’s the best part of writing, so I’ve come to see. It even happened here, and how good it was. And now, until the next time, when it returns (IT WILL!), The End.

(Now don’t you wish I’d just go back to death and dying, and leave optimism to  optimists?)