Writing in Absentia
Chola,
It’s been about a month and a half since you left for Germany. Thus far, I’ve received a semi-autobiographical account of your trip, a few text messages trying to sort out the logistics of a phone call, and a phone call. It seems you’ve kept many of your same habits, chiefly: watching baseball, and a distinct separation from the society you find yourself in. I do hope you give Berlin a chance.
It is no surprise that in our last meeting before you left we should have talked about writing. The first time you called me it was about writing. You accused me of having too much money for my own good. What else would compel someone in Zambia to open up a publishing house? I never went through with it as a result of my own lack of fortitude. It is a painful memory now, but I am happy I met you through it. I don’t like to be sentimental – I feel like too much writing nowadays is sentimental – but I think this calls for it: I believe now, as then, that you found a kindred soul.
As our paths diverge across the globe, I believe our friendship is still bound by writing. Our tardy exchanges have always had the feeling of sounding each other out, not quite sure where a conversation should go. Which has drawn out parallels, misunderstandings, love affairs, etc. of all sorts. It is the ability to speak one’s own mind unattended, with only the echoes of an audience, that has been rewarding. There are no expectations in these exchanges.
I believe we are writing in some kind of absentia. Writing requires one to exit the world momentarily. I specifically choose the word ‘absentia’ instead of ‘absence’ because in my mind it gives a quality of being absent but ready to return at any point – like those exiles of a past era who were ‘tried’ and ‘convicted’ in absentia. I used to believe that writing was reflective, that I could better understand the world around me through it. To some extent that idea still holds true, but I am now firmly convinced that writing is more than that. We are writing in absentia: in absentia of the place we hope we’ll end up, in absentia of who we’d like to be, in absentia of kindred souls.
Where is this place we go when we write? I think we go to the antechamber of meaning. In my opinion true writing never offers its adherents (writers & readers alike) any certainty in the world. That is the job of scriptures, whether ancient or modern. True writing is always once removed from experience, dreams, or intellect. It cannot tell you how to live, or necessary how to better understand the world. It is, after all, just an arbitrary arrangement of words on a page. But we can access meaning through writing if we allow it to broaden our horizons of what is possible to think, act, or imagine.
You see, I have a strange relationship with the texts I write. They always seem to possess a past version of myself, one which I cannot access now. True, I can see the traces of that person, and if I employ some imagination – or good historical sense – I can further understand why a former self wrote something. But they are removed from reach by that antechamber of meaning. Perhaps that is why I am afraid to write; I may discover something truly terrifying, something sublime, with both the ability to compel and destroy myself.
I tried not to be sentimental. I failed.
