20190123.0430

I often turn over in my mind what I would write, were I to actually sit and write a cohesive narrative rather than a string of limericks that connect in some fashion. Such thoughts end up leading me either to a collection of essays or to a memoir, and they soon lead me to defeatist attitudes that strand me in some strange mental space, from which I can do nothing else but trek back to the civilization and routine that is my daily life and resume other tasks. For I tend to think that others think essays are reading for other people than them and that my own life is a dull thing that does not admit much of recollection where others can read it. (That I remember too much, too vividly does not help.)
I do not make such comments in the interest of being told that I am wrong. Indeed, I am occasionally reminded of it when I talk to others and some bits of my background emerge (and I am reminded that I have not appreciated my background and history as much as I probably ought to have done). I may not have lived the stuff of dreams, but I have had opportunities to do some neat things--and I've even availed myself of some of them. (I know I've let quite a few pass me by, as well--more than I've taken, in fact. As I've noted, I'm more risk-averse than reward-seeking. Whether that's good or bad, I'm not sure.)
No, I make such comments from experience. Essays have the stink of academe about them; they still smell of the ivory tower that has gone too long uncleaned. Many who are not themselves in academic pursuits will tend to push against them, or will if they are presented as such--and I do not know how else to present them. I also do not know that the essays I would write, if left to my own devices, would cleave to a single theme or topic in a way that might prove useful. (I suspect not, since the pieces I've put together in this webspace this month have not done so--and a book of them would require more focus, yet.)
The same is true for any memoir I might write; I am not sure that my experiences have formed a coherent narrative, though my career shifts might make for convenient sections of such a book. With a memoir, too, I would run into the issue of other people's privacy. Such stories as I might share necessarily involve others, and I am not certain they would want the stories told--or told by me, re-associating me with them. I have been out of contact with many of the people I grew up with for quite some time, and while there have been a few (a very few) who have reached out, most have been content to let the contact be not. I've made no secret of my presence, after all, either online or physical, and I've heard from nearly none. Sudden re-introductions via lawsuit do not seem good ways to connect again.
With such things in mind, then, I press on in the writing that I do, hoping that I will stumble into something a bit better for me to do and keeping in practice until that time comes so that I can actually do something with the opportunity, should it arise.