Dead Darlings

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Dead Darlings

A very talented coworker introduced me to a new term: Dead Darlings. These are strings of words too good to discard, but we can never seem to find the right spot for them, so we squirrel them away for a rainy day (or writer's block).

I have many files of them, including a couple called "Tweets I Didn't Tweet" and "Blogs I Didn't Blog," and tons of short starts to short stories, longer starts to unfinished novels, and a host of couplets and quatrains and other things that have glimmers of beauty, but nothing you'd want to look at too long.

Maybe someday my dead darlings will be resurrected.

[2012-08-29]

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I understand now.

I used to not understand folks that were at peace with life and death and eternity and all the pain and waste and questions in between.

How can they possibly be so sure that they know what they claim to know?

I understand now.

It's not a matter of being convinced (though trying to be convinced helps but will fail on its own).

It's not a lack of doubt, either (because we all sometimes doubt).

It's not apathy or ennui or exhaustion (though they may precede it).

And you can't fully verbalize it, and those that understand it best are least able to (like my father, who lived it rather than talked it)..

And neither can you give or grant or imbue or infuse or bestow it.

So what is it that I understand?

{I wrote and rewrote an answer to my own question. I wasn't happy with any of them. Pretend I wrote something concise and full of meaning here.}

It's that.

But it never ends.

It gets bruised a lot, and it waxes and wanes, but it persists, and nudges you when you need it or ignore it.

c0

Yesterday [2012-0918] I ran into a former coworker while standing in line at a grocery store checkout. There was a holdup at the register and we had a few minutes. When we finally parted, she cried. She'd been forced to leave her previous company, and although she looked happy and healthy, she was troubled.

A few minutes before that conversation with her, I told a guy working in the frozen food aisle that a bottle of ketchup had broken on the floor a few aisles over. The conversation went exactly like this:

Me: Excuse me, sir...
Him: I'm listening.
Me: There's a bottle of ketchup broken on the floor a couple aisles over.
Him: Thanks. It's not really at the top of my list right now.

Normally both these conversations would have upset me, for different reasons, and I would have carried both of them with me for days and obsessed over the emotion I absorbed. Instead, on this occasion, there was a peaceful coexistence with them.

Why? Partly, perhaps, because I know what my coworker went through; I ran through those emotions myself not long ago. And I also used to do that guy's job in the frozen food aisle. I wore that same quilted jacket and worked with the same equipment in the same aisle. And I must say I had moments I am less proud of than this one; IMHO he was rather restrained. If you haven't worked at a high-volume grocery store, you don't know the pressure those guys are sometimes working under.

[2012-08-28]

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Quote

Is Sunday the last day of my weekend or the first day of my week?
--Fr John Riccardo

Heard August 28, 2012, but was a rebroadcast of an earlier talk.

[2012-08-28]

c0