The first week of the first writing job felt like sailing on a ship for the first time. So this is the sea, you thought, at last, we met. As someone who lives in the mountains, the sea is foreign familiarity. It’s where the fantasy dolphin lives, it’s where the genie in her clam lives, it’s where the mermaids are. You’ve known it your whole life without really seeing it. Except for once when you were 4, or on the news when a Tsunami hits and dad was on the shore.
You’ve always been familiar with the words. Same words you heard on your bedtime story for as long as you can remember, same words on the book of fairytales your parents bought you for a birthday when you can finally read by yourself. They turn into the words on your sad diary entries — too sad for a kindergarten kid. They turn into the lyrics of your favorite songs that you scribble down with a drawing of roses and ghosts. Before you know it the word became yours, on love letters, diary entries you write crying, your first attempt in writing poems. They became something that pours out of you, natural as the drips of sweat and tears, like blood seeping through a cut or bad decisions out of angst.
It all came down to this: your first manifesto. You have absolutely no idea what to write, so your boss called you to his office. Your new laptop felt nice on your hands, the ones that true creatives use. Excitement and fear weigh your steps, wrapped in cheap sustainable sneakers that felt a size bigger and would fell apart anytime. After knocking on the glass door, you walked in and sat before your boss. The award-winning executive creative director, notorious for his sharp words that made people quit their jobs.
Your hands are on stand-by, chubby fingers float on the keyboard ready to write something that’s not ready to be written. You don’t even know where to start, your boss is checking on his phone so you just stare out the window right at the empty rooftop lounge with vines dangling on the tall windows. You observe the boss’ room: the faint smell of incense, IKEA fabric drawers, a black desk that felt cheap, and on top of it are a crystal ball the size of a fist with a matching crystal paperweight. For feng shui, he once said.
He laughed then put down his phone. So, how was it? I said I don’t even know what to write, he said always come back to the idea, okay but how? He said I need to crystalize it. Have you heard of Charles Bukowski?
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
He recites the lines like something from a bible, he remembers each word by heart. Still looking at me, he continues:
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
I felt my heart thumping in excitement. So this is the sea, and I’m now a ship crew.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.there is no other way.
and there never was.
I know I have to print the poem and stick it somewhere on my desk. It felt like a movie scene, my boss looking at me like I’m a duckling and he’s teaching me how to paddle, the 4 pm sun pierced through the window and fall on the crystal paperweight. It felt like the afternoon before a championship when you’re thinking about the strategy to win. You know there will be countless waves to be conquered, suffocating storms to be fought, and sea monsters to face. For the first time, you don’t feel like you’re out of place — like you were not supposed to be there, it‘s the only thing you know how to do.
And from now on you will keep doing it, naturally.
