Lost and Found

I sometimes make notes to myself about essays I want to write. They’re usually very short, meant to remind me of an idea I was very excited about. This I did the other day, jotting down on the legal pad I keep by my computer: Agreement. Acceptance & Rejection. This morning, I stared and stared at those three words, but could not remember the idea to which they were referring. I did recall it was a good one, so good I nearly started writing it on the spot. I also remembered that the note was initially just – Agreement, figuring that would be all I would need. I added Acceptance & Rejection anyway, though at the time it seemed almost performative. No way I would forget this one. It was half-written in my mind already.

Still unable to remember what I’d so excited about, I considered treating the note as a kind of prompt: Write 450 words about the relationship between agreement, acceptance, and rejection. I sensed, however, I would only be recycling something I’d already written, having explored this subject so much in the last ten years. Actually, I’ve been exploring it my whole life whether I knew it or not, and mostly I did not. It’s better to know you’re exploring something. When you don’t know, you feel lost. You’re in the forest, and you just want to get home, which I usually believed was a crowd cheering, or some variation thereof. I was an artist, after all.

It can be hard to acknowledge that you went into the forest on purpose, that you were as interested in rejection as acceptance. The crowd that’s silent is as valuable as the crowd that laughs. The girls who said no when you were young were as necessary as the ones who said yes. How tempting to reject everything and everyone who doesn’t agree with you. You have caused me pain – begone! Yet there they remain, un-cancellable and as real as ever.

I still wonder if I’ll ever remember that idea I had. Trust me when I tell you it was good. It’ll probably come back to me when I’m otherwise engaged. Or it may have already served its purpose. I’ve come to enjoy wandering blind into these little stories, starting the first sentence with absolutely no destination in mind. If you accept you’re interested, that it’s all you want, that it’s a trail through any darkness, then you’re never lost.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com