Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Laughter tears words

Laughter, body-shaking, straight up from the belly, tears streaming down laughter never perplexes anyone. Making love requires very little conversation or explanation. It’s about the same in all languages. Anyone in the world knows that weeping empties grief from the heart. We see someone laugh or cry, or a couple looking straight into each other’s eyes, we don’t wonder what they’re feeling.

I said recently that “words are liars by their very nature.” But I spend the entire weekend (and this isn’t the first time) sitting in front of computer until my ass is numb and my eyes are crossing, writing.

Why?

I’ve just commented on Marigoldie’s site – making her wonder if she’s coming across differently than she intended. The very thing I was just saying happens to me here at Life On Earth sometimes.

She’s a very talented writer. It’s hard to miss the picture she paints – but easy to look through your own life experience, (which is, let’s face it, what you’ve got) and then you may see things from a different angle than the writer does. Whether it’s her, me or anyone else. It’s like the story of the blind men trying to describe an elephant – one touching the elephants’ tail, one touching the trunk and so forth.

But sometimes, we manage it, we insomniac scribblers. We manage to say something so clearly, so purely, that it’s like watching someone laugh from the belly or cry from the heart – we wring the truth out of those words. I’ve seen that happen on each and every blog I’ve linked to - which is why the link is there. I’m thinking of posting a list of my favorite pieces to make a record of the entries that kept me going back to visit the same writers, again and again.

Meanwhile, I’d like to refer you to this recent entry on Mr. Head’s blog, which touched me enormously.

6 comments:

Zhoen said...

Four blind elephants investigate a man.
They all come to the same conclusion:
A man is Squishy and Flat.
C. Perkins.

Yidchick said...

Thank you for your beutiful writing and for the link.

From your fellow Insomniac scribbler :-)

LJ said...

Zhoen - Blogspot ate your other comment!
Damn.
Thanks, both of you, for stopping in.

LJ said...

I have retrieved ZHOEN'S lost comment from email:
"I always figure, fact or fiction, that the reader finishes the writing. Then ascribes it to the writer, and that writer's true life. My 'fact" and my "fiction" really blurred when I did nanowrimo, but I think, having written so much quasi biograpy, that I have cleared the decks so I CAN write fiction. Good luck."

Great point - about clearing the decks with quasi biography. I'm still quite blurred. I'm wishing events from my life on my poor beset character. (Better she has them, I figure!)

Mary said...

This is good - and I can see I have catching up to do on posts I've missed here this past week or so.

And don't you just love it when a blogger hits the spot and soars ...

LJ said...

Yes, Ma'am I do love that. And I always enjoy reading my "regulars"