I posted a personal semi-revelation on one of my Facebook accounts earlier today. It’s nothing fancy, but some people liked it a lot and even found it helpful, so I’m going to share it here to spread the love a little further:

It’s cool when you’re totally afraid of something — even paralyzed because of it — and think you’re failing, and then you realize that you have *not* done everything you can and it’s not that you haven’t achieved your goal because you suck and are awful, but because you’ve been [sabotaging] yourself into paralysis. And now you can start digging yourself out of that hole and shine like a star on crack.

A friend said she wants to etch this on her wall. Another said she’s going through this with someone right now and that it’s “so right on.” A third just wrote, “word to your mother.”

Sharing your thoughts with others is rewarding enough; learning that your words resonate with and are appreciated by people you care about is like getting an idea-hug. Er, whatever that is.

Sunset in Bradenton, FL

Speaking of terrible first efforts … yes, one does have to start somewhere when wanting to write something.

But – many times, unfortunately, when I entertain the thought of journaling (or, hopefully, writing something more sophisticated, so to speak), I end up not writing about the deluge of thoughts in my head because they appear to be endless and virtually unmanageable to me. There are countless nuances, conflicting perspectives, anachronistic moments related in certain ways but not others, myriad sensations of varying flavors and intensities, heightened shivers and quivers I believe I will be unable to shape into words, …

Do you see my dilemma?

I do not feel exactly as though my problem is that I lack the set of vocabulary necessary to explain myself, as I would to describe the various details pertaining to the texture, taste, and so on of a food product as food tasters do. I simply become so enchanted (and somewhat pleasantly overwhelmed) by the experiences I wish to document or the thoughts that I wish to transcribe that I end up – as my friend’s therapist used to say – “mindfucking myself into paralysis.”

It occurred to me to record myself talking it out. Then it occurred to me that I’d never get around to transcribing the recording because it would be too tedious and I’d lack sufficient motivation.

Is it a shame? Or is the experience itself, in real time and later in fading memories, enough, or even worth more than anything words could possibly convey?

I suppose it would depend on whom you ask.

But listen: how exactly is one supposed to verbally depict mind-blowing multiple and shared orgasms and the connection felt and built with someone you are beginning to fall for? The intense mutual gazing into each other’s eyes while you caress each other, tickling, causing shivers, quick smirks lasting milliseconds, childlike giggling, a lover playing with your hair, a warm pink glow on satiated cheeks, plump seductive lips, dark and soft stubble, adorable dimples, an electrical pulse through the middle of your torso that reemerges every time you replay that one instance…?

I can’t do it.

And, listen, I’ve read erotica and overwrought Victorian novels and I can confidently tell you that it cannot be done. Nothing you can write will compare to what one feels in a moment like the one I just described. There is no way to transform sensations and feelings accurately into words – you can’t even write them so they will simultaneously coexist, because writing and reading are linear processes, and there is thus no way to transmit all coexisting experiences together, in their full intensity, uniqueness, sheen, magic (or a less hackneyed word).

No way.

Writing, alas, is a terribly limited and limiting art, system, and process. Verbal language cannot compare to that of the body and soul. As a writer, this is something I lament.

If anyone believes she/he can prove me wrong, I welcome your efforts!