I have to sort of think of this like homework. What I want to avoid right now is using a “journaling” voice; that’s not my goal here. Anyway, I used my notebook last night and I feel like I should go for 20 minutes if I’m doing longhand because I write so slowly. What about tonight?
I don’t like literature. I love good writing, and I love good stories, but I hate writing that feels like it’s trying really hard, and I hate stories that seem to exist for no greater reason than to exist. Ayn Rand, in her manual on art, said that a story must include a theme. She described theme as “an idea about human existence”. Some stories (I’ll cite “The Catcher in the Rye” here) seem to be very weak on Theme. Sure, there’s a plot, events happen that correlate to one another, but they express no overarching idea about human existence. They leave me with the sense that I’ve just read something very self serving and ultimately meaningless. I shouldn’t be offended; isn’t all art, by its very nature, self serving? It exists only to please the artist, after all. Or, it should exist only to please the artist.
In any event, those sorts of novels, which are often described as “literature” and which can leave the reader with a vast sense of hopelessness do nothing for me. I know it’s incredibly pretentious to call great works crap, so I won’t, but I wouldn’t read them. Really. Who would want to?
Here’s the rub…I have to overcome a great deal of psychological resistance to want to write what I want to write. I need to stop taking myself so seriously. And the other rub is, what I want to write, I have no ideas about. What I don’t care to write, I can easily think of several plots for. Should theme develop out of plot, or vice versa? I need t read more. Enough! Should I doodle? I need to do something “fictitious” to make his time spent worthwhile, and believe me, it took 20 minutes of procrastinating to get this 10 minutes of writing to happen. Alright, Lets talk dogs.
When I open the garage door the first thing I see are their crates, because that’s what I’m looking for, I guess. I slide my toe to the edge of the first step, the lip is made of wood, in contrast to the rest of the kitchen floor which is tile. The second before I put my weight on that piece of wood, I always imagine it snapping off, sending me sprawling into the garage, accompanied by the sound of my body slamming into concrete, the baying of dogs, and, undoubtedly, a fair amount of cursing. But when I get my weight onto this wooden flange I’m instantly reminded of how sturdy it is. It doesn’t even tremble, not just a little. Impressive craftsmanship. Reaching the floor of the garage I always take a minute to survey the situation. Both of their food bowls are empty, Noah is low on water. To my left, the door between them and sweet freedom stands, secured by a metal slide bar no thicker than a pencil. I unlatch it and open it, because what follows is barely controlled chaos.
Noah is always first, because if I let Macy out first she will crawl into his crate to attack him. I don’t know what pleasure she can get out of this, but she relishes it so much that sometimes I consider leting her do it simply for her own gratification. Once he’s out of his crate he stretches, first front, extending his front paws and lowering his chest to the floor, then back, moving his body forward to rest over the front, lengthening the rear legs. After this, it’s quick-as-you-like through the door, to turn around and bark (at me, I suppose). By this time Macy is grumbling, and putting a paw on the door to her crate, as if to remind me that she needs to go as well, as if I could forget. And this now, is the time for bracing breaths. This would be the time for a dram of dutch courage. The time that makes grown men tremble. You see, a 70 pound, one year old german shepherd’s exuberence is often only matched by the physical power and athleticism of same. To say that she jumps for joy would be an understatement. She leaps. She flings her soul into the air, and her body follows. There are moments, at the top of her arc, when she is looking down at me and time stops. I can see her trying to decide which of my softest and least protected bodyparts she should drag a paw across. Arm? Chest? Cheek? It’s not deliberate, but she is so excited, so happy to see me, to be free, to…well, who knows. Sniff. Stretch. In any event, she must do one full circle around me, and at least two jumps, before she’ll go outside. Once she’s done that she’s pretty manageable, but those few moments…they’re something.