the illusion of memory

I have done a little soul searching in this life.  Okay, a lot.  Okay, more than most monasteries have in a five hundred year history.  I am one big mound of introspection (say what you will about my clumsy attempts at earnest expression on occasion, I do know my heart).

It took weeks to put out the last podcast, and I understand why now...the fire is not there.  Oh, I can fan it for a moment into a semblance of heat and light, but without an active muse, it grows pale and frail with decay.

Just a few weeks ago I was talking to a woman of my acquaintance on the phone and she asked me about "the voice".  I had little trouble slipping into it, because I am rather enamored of this woman.

But when I sat down in front of the microphone to record the podcast, the voice wasn't there, I couldn't summon it.  Bruce Autrey of Poetry Heaven had made a point in his review of one of my books that reading my work was like peering into someone's bedroom.  I understand what he said more than he does, I think.  I express the raw, the true, the naked, the pure.

And it is tough.  Except under inspiration.

I have no trouble shedding my expressive inhibitions for a woman I am actively interested in or involved with, but to just summon the words and the wonder without that...I can fake it, but I am acutely aware of how limited that is.

I don't want to fake it anymore.  No more memories, no more illusions.