I like prebeginnings. My favorite time of day is the dark before dawn. I prefer to approach it from sleep, though I quite often find it from the wrong direction: the end of the night.
I like Spring. But I love the Winter that precedes it. And, most especially, the Fall that promises Winter and looks forward to its own eventual redemption. I love Fall and Winter more intrinsically, but I love them for their relationship to the life they usher in. Summer, I have to say, almost always feels like a great disappointment.
Maybe I’m weird that way, but I’m okay with my weirdness.
When I first decided that I needed to write this post, it was as a sort of apology: I realized that I had started a bunch of things and otherwise manifested a strong predilection to introducing and prefacing maybe more than completing. And what you don’t know is that I have several more that I really need to post: prefaces, introductions and such.
The more I thought about it, the less I felt like I needed to apologize. Sure my tendency to preface works with some of my dysfunctions. But so does my writing; for that matter, so does my thought. And–whether I should or not–I’m getting really tired of apologizing for how I think and speak.
I have lots to say about the predawn and my love of it. And, of course, I’m not going to say it here, now. Yes, this too.
But there are two things I want you to know:
1. I take my titles seriously. They’re a kind of preface. At the very least, they pose a perspective that, though I may quickly veer from it, I hope that you’ll let intermix with what follows. Sometimes they’re silly, but that’s part of the point too. On more than a few occasions I’ve anguished over repeating the title as the first line of the post just to make sure that you got it and paid attention to it. Part of why I’m writing this is so that I don’t worry about that anymore.
2. Though I’m not writing sequentially or systematically, I’m conscious of what I’ve written and, like that little blurb (the title, I mean) at the top of the page, I mean you to take it all together somehow. You don’t have to. I’m pleased that you’re even reading a single post. And, really, I do believe in taking a thing as itself–even taking a thing deliberately out of context–and I believe that we are more than the sum of our parts or the culmination of our histories and genetic inputs. But, still, context helps. So, especially if you’re confused. The category links are very helpful that way.
So, yeah, more later.
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Sat - 2009/01/03 at 12:58
Gabriel
I’ve never understood the artform of preludes. You know, like Chopin’s preludes. Preludes to what? A lot of poets like to write preludes. To what?
“It was a dark and stormy night…”
“She crumpled up the paper and threw it at nothing. She then gazed at array of colored balls at her feet. She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and went to the kitchen to pour a drink. Will he ever come back?”
On a more cynical note… it seems like some rock bands write awesome preludes… but then never deliver on the rest of the song. (Foo Fighters do this.) Other folks (particularly Praise and Worship types) are masters at writing inspiring choruses… but wrap them in worthless verses. (Tom Petty’s “Runaway Trains” comes to mind.)
But, you’re helping me understand it a bit more. It’s the thrill of potential. Of something new. And oftentimes… the full story doesn’t deliver and it’s more fun to bask in the concept.
…sort of like in ‘City Slickers’ where Curly describes the love of his life: A red-headed woman he saw in the distance hanging laundry… but he never met her. Why? “It just wouldn’t get any better than that.”
Sun - 2009/01/04 at 16:36
joelmw
Yep, I think that’s a lot of it: this side of the Second Coming, the actuality is always going to disappoint.
There’s more of course. It’s interesting (and, of course, influential) to me that biblical texts are quite front heavy. And, really, each successive revelation, far from tying up the loose ends in a finality of fulfillment, opens up more messiness of promise and potentiality.
But, yeah, like I said, more later. 😉