My dishwasher is a machine devoid of miracles. Even the everyday kind are beyond its talents: leaving a wine glass spotless, not plastering tiny specks of dried food into my clear glass tumblers, cleaning the surface of my glossy-glazed plates to a condition fit for company. I could spend a day deep-cleaning it; scouring the layers of grime and dried gunk from its innards, but what has it ever done for me? I didn't buy it, I don't own it, and when I leave in 5 months, someone else will benefit from my hard work. But you get out of something what you put into it. No work= no reward.
My writing is like that. I worked on it, I honed it, but then I got complacent. I look back at old pieces and wonder how my mind put those words together so casually; in my mind I hear them fit so well, they have cadence, occasional shafts of brilliant sentences run through them like glimpses of some higher purpose. But now my words have become jumbled, confused. My vocabulary has narrowed and old words stand dusty in the cupboard of my mind, canned or pickled for some long winter. Old friends, left behind. Sluggish words bloat my sentences, dulling sharp intents.
Writing is not a gift, or even a talent. Writing is a skill. Those with "talent" usually gain that from reading. Anyone can write, if they work for it. I'm going to work for it, going to remind myself, daily, that writing is a more gratifying, more exact expression of who I am than any other art.
