a narrative i can't seem to tell. right now.

In the past several weeks, I have made so many notes of things I desire to write on:

- Senator Kennedy’s words at the DNC convention, “And this is the cause of my life -- new hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American -- north, south, east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We can meet these challenges with Barack Obama. Yes, we can, and finally, yes, we will. Barack Obama will close the book on the old politics of race and gender and group against group and straight against gay.”
- The journey, comforts, and dismay of my summer.
- The displacement of a million people in Haiti because of storms and flooding.

But I am weak and uninspired, and incapable of writing. I would rather be numb. I watch TV now. Passionate note-taking no longer leads to actual writing. Stress does not translated into motivated creations. The constant cerebral stimulation and scholarly shallowness have been replaced with a shallow Capote-style cocktail party conversation with the same people, and a holding pattern 18 hours a day inside an apartment on 16^th Street.

The most live things in my sphere of physical life are the presence of the white house at the end of this street, and playing tennis, nearly a week ago. My first in a year. Neither of which have a sustainable or survivable presence in this storm of limbo.

I want nothing more than to write, and think, and cite, and feel, and love, and encounter the textures of this life, most intimately. However, those textures became all-too close in Haiti, and after, I had to retreat, and recover. I am going home to California for a couple of weeks.

“What are you writing?” I made a mistake and asked.
“I am writing the best I can. Just as you do. But it’s so terribly difficult.”
“You shouldn’t write if you can’t write. What do you have to cry about it for? Go Home. Get a job. Hang yourself. Only don’t talk about it. You could never write.”
-Ernest Hemmingway, A Movable Feast