Dear Fellow,
It is Friday, 16th September 2022.
Of necessity or not, this letter is being written on a countdown of 45 minutes. The time on my screen is 10:45 a.m. It just turned 10:46 a.m. It is drizzling outside and the cold is sipping through my feet. How is it that it has rained more than it did in August? Well, God knows best.
There was a power outage just at the end of the preceding paragraphing, I had to reset my timer again to another 45-minute countdown. The time now is about 06:06 p.m. The break in transmission, among other constraints, constitutes veritable reasons for one to run into exhaustion. For some, it can be a reason to not commit to a regular schedule, like writing weekly. Regardless, humans always find a way around challenges. I am finding a way around mine now.
The post for tomorrow, by my schedule, is the second part of the series titled “An Autobiography in Biographies 2”. Also, as I stated in the first episode, the content has, perhaps, too little for everyone subscribed to this newsletter: In the introduction, I stated that it would benefit anyone who is a writer more. I have been tinkering with the idea in my head. The style I had in mind to render the content seems not to serve what I intend for the post to accomplish.
Well, I take you seriously to not show up in your inbox tomorrow by 7:30 a.m. Hence this spontaneous letter.
Figuring things out these days feels like standing at the start of a maze. While sorting things out in your head, a to-do list is building or is being followed, every task prefixed with a checkbox. Do you get the idea of the subtitle now—“Mazes and Checkboxes”?
As I thought of what to offer you tomorrow, I had many ideas springing up in my head and various alternatives to pick from. I also thought of sharing an essay written by a dear friend which I will be reading aloud at a literary event tomorrow. (I wish you will be there. It is the anniversary celebration of one of the serene, reader-friendly spaces in my city. A reading garden called Jarding Reading Garden.) For good reasons, I let it lay hidden until its unveiling tomorrow.
Writing this feels like running in a maze. Like Sniff and Scurry or the little men in Dr Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese?, I am on the run to pick up the crumbs of cheese lying around until I find a new cheese station for you and me. My to-do list is never empty. Checking the boxes as I run, more items enter the list.
On and on, running, until the very box prefixing this activity (writing this update) is checked and unto the next. However, I still find time to rest so I can be at an optimum to recognise the opportunities that come my way or when Muse returns.
I want to go on rambling until my timer beeps stop. Yet I think it doesn’t hurt to stop here. The timer says I have just about 18 more minutes to roll. I could use up the time for some other activity, so that, at least, another box gets checked.
Until I write to you again, do not hesitate to share in the comment what reading this felt like, especially if it spurred you somehow to write to a loved one you have been unable to write simply because you are still waiting for Muse to return.
Over here, Muse is almost never absent or should I say her absence is not noticed. Whichever one, a spark happens in-between always.
Your LetterMan,
Tongjal, W. N.