Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
These days seem to bear down on me like heavy rainfall on sodden leaves. I seek the intellectual stimulation of work, the humour of friends and the distraction of the everyday. And yet it remains. That constant drum beat, the march of inhumanity, the secrecy, the lies and the slow degradation of all that we know to be real and true and good.
Words feel too heavy sometimes. There is so much to say. I’m afraid that if I start, once I start, I might never be able to stop. I’m angry. Grief has finally given way to an anger that will lead to action. I used to write about love and peace. I used to rant about racism and injustice. That was when I lived ‘the writer’s life’, in that downtown loft in Edmonton, Alberta. That was before my own heartbreak seemed more important than boatloads of refugees being discarded as if they were criminals or cattle.
I know why I stopped writing. Filled with some fanciful myth about being abandoned by my muse. Excuses. Distractions. Fear of what I might express. And what might remain unexpressed.
Always something to say, always weighed down by the wait. What am I waiting for? That first snowfall.