Frisson

Every blog I post is a love letter to you.

As words begin to attach themselves to a thought whirling around in my brain, I slowly recognize the emotions that are driving an insistent drumbeat. Therein lies the passion that provokes me to write. As I compose a piece—sometimes slowly and carefully, sometimes rapidly with abandon—I realize the subject of the post is nothing more than a vehicle for relaying how I feel. And what could be more intimate than sharing my inchoate thoughts, thoughts that I am just beginning to understand, with you?

It’s dangerous, frankly. It’s reckless. It’s exhilarating. Nonetheless, I do it.

I don’t always know if my tentative plea to connect with you has been successful. Did my message leap the synapse of time and distance and tingle your nerve endings? Did my words bring us closer? Or did they widen some invisible chasm that threatens to swallow them in its gaping maw?

Sometimes you let me know I reached you. You send an email. Post a comment. Other times, I choose to believe my words prompted a slow simmer that may eventually awaken new awareness, without sparking a too-hot flame.

Sometimes I learn that my cautiously expressed feelings are universal, or at least more widely shared than my ugly self-absorption would have me believe. Sometimes I learn that my words help you sort out your own thoughts.

It has bothered me lately that I seem to have nothing to say to you. No thoughts have bumped rudely around in my head, demanding to be let out. I’ve tried to summon some sort of passion, but I know I cannot press. I must let it develop on its own.

Perhaps a year of loss has finally taken its toll, a summer of disruption has knocked me out of rhythm. Too much death, near and far, both inevitable and avoidable. Too much illness, both inconsequential and critical. I can’t find my balance. I have lost my words.
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They may yet return, and I hope you will again allow me to reach out to you, needy and raw, and share what I’m feeling. By doing so, I have learned, I slowly begin to understand myself.

But right now I hate my own voice. It’s irritating. Whiny. Tinny. Uninteresting. Perhaps that will pass. Perhaps not. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll be patient with me, like a faithful dog. We’ll see if my passion for communicating will reignite.

Know that I’m grateful for your loyalty, dear reader. I honor the time you spend with my words. I long to reach out to you with more thoughtful discourse. And I hope that when we do reconnect the frisson will startle us yet once more and prompt unexpected discoveries.
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