Through My Eyes: A Journal

By Liz Root

Contact Liz by emailing her at liz@vagrantcafe.com

Click here for weekly archives

7/13/2002
i read a rather depressing book today. it was about love discovered and immediately lost. i'm not sure if it's the book or other things that have put me into the mood i'm in, but nevertheless i'm in a mood. i've been unintentionally withdrawing myself. with the arrival of a computer, i've retreated to my "writing" a lot more than I used to. i hear about famous writers and how strange they all were. everybody thinks it's so cool to be a famous author/writer, but writers are lonely. they forsake relationships for words.

tonight i'm going to forget about trying to hint things instead of tell them. tonight i'm going to tell things straight out. tonight my heart aches. it's been raining, and the evening has been quiet. i've had computer troubles. and of course, there was that book. so somehow i've been thrown into a downward spiral, and pretty soon i'll be feeling really sorry for myself. i feel disconnected. i feel like i'd almost found something really valuable, and once again it escaped me. i use the word "feel" too much.

"oh tonight...i will retire...to the loving arms of my savior...and we will walk through his gates..are my sins...are they forgiven? and if i should taste fire...save me not, i deserve to die." - damien jurado.
this song is so beautiful.

i guess maybe "home" is beckoning me a little more loudly than usual today.


- liz r. - 7/13/2002


this week i've been devoting a lot of my time to reading and writing and generally being by myself. i don't claim to know a lot about writing, but i do know that it's not the kind of thing most writers do when a lot of people are around, or even just one other person. i feel kind of bad because i'll be hanging out with people and all i feel like doing is retreating to my room with the computer and a stack of books.

life is slow. from my room with the green walls, my view of the world is limited to a hotel, a restaurant, a mental hospital, and the ymca. i suppose that could pretty much summarize this town. the tree outside moves according to the wind, as we all do. i don't feel like i'm at home. i'm only here until the next thing. and the next thing after that. and so on. does the wind chase me or do i chase the wind?

jill and i are beginning to discuss the possibility of europe sometime next year. this is the first time in my life anything this big feels possible. probable, even. in its own ways, my past has always told me that i didn't deserve adventure. i've grown up watching ninety-five percent of people take a backseat to life. i don't want to be one of those people. i know i cannot arrange my life, but i must have it. i'd rather have stories than possessions, so it's time to get out.


- liz r. - 7/13/2002

7/12/2002
another night of "writing." i feel comfortable with calling it writing now. now that i know how annie dillard got herself to write. she wrote things out by hand and doodled over most of it for up to 16 hours a day, and called it "writing." so i figure i can have Wordpad open, linger on message boards, drink pots of coffee, put together outfits i will wear when autumn comes, and it will be "writing."

a good friend of mine commented on a blog i wrote the other day. a blog that i would consider dull and boring. she liked it more than most of my stuff because it was "simple." i think i lack simplicity. i want it, but instead i think i should write this ultra-eloquent stuff..."knock your socks off" kind of stuff. get lost in vocabulary. but i'm beginning to see that sometimes things are best left only hinted at, instead of told outright. could someone please bestow me the gift of subtlety?


- liz r. - 7/12/2002


i've been mentioning annie dillard a lot lately. if writers are supposed to have other writers who influence them and they look up to, or in my case, idolize, it's her. i don't want to write just like her or anything...but i want to figure out how she does it i guess. you can see from these blogs, that i'm nowhere close. she has the capability to talk about completely normal, and almost boring things...and make them interesting, and reveal more of the human mystery than i ever could by trying to be abstract and eloquent. but then of course she'll go into her tirades (sp?) of abstraction and of course it's beautiful and makes total sense. she knows how to balance her words. it's hard to explain. go to your library and check out "pilgrim at tinker creek." or "for the time being." or "the writing life."


- liz r. - 7/12/2002

7/11/2002
today i've been doing nothing but reading, writing and arithmetic...no wait. not arithmetic. playing around on the internet. i've been reading annie dillard's "the writing life" for the second time, and it's really kicking me hard. it's both encouraging and discouraging. it's encouraging to know that someone as great as her struggles. it's discouraging because after her struggles, she still manages to put quality art into the world.

anyway.

i have one of those bedrooms that if someone really wanted to, they could probably get a decent night's entertainment by looking into it from the street below. i live on the second floor of a two-story building downtown. i have a 10-ft tall window which faces the main street of town. so i'm sure the waiters and waitresses at the restaurant across the street have probably seen me change my pants once or twice when i've forgotten to close the blinds all the way. oh well. they've probably seen me walk in and out, turn the light on and off, light candles, yell at my computer, put cds in the player, and dance like a fool. it's kind of weird living here. i forget that i'm in the busiest part of town b/c i'm here by myself in my apartment listening to ben folds. it's so easy to disconnect from the world.


- liz r. - 7/11/2002

7/10/2002
hope, healing and grace abound and i am left speechless with disbelief. the world opens and the possibilities are endless. i think about a dream i had a few months back, the kind of dream that stays with you forever, the kind of dream that prophesies. only now am i beginning to believe its truth.

so much more.

grace lurks around every corner, chasing me with its unrelentless goodness.


- liz r. - 7/10/2002

7/8/2002
well...i'm back. i'm almost not sure what to write. i know it will take a day or two for things to begin sinking in. and then it will still be difficult to decide what i want to write about it, or whether or not i should. jessie and i had a good time in spite of the heat. i got to see some of my favorite bands...and so that's always nice. i got to meet some pretty amazing people, and hang out with some amazing ones i already knew. =)

in the beginning stages of reflection, i find myself realizing that i focus more on the good memories than the bad. that although there was heartbreak, there was redemption. where there was lust, purity intervened. i sit here feeling torn, and at the same time...healed. "tearing in my heart when the world falls apart and it's almost too hard." (sunny day real estate). i guess it will seems like things are always beyond my grasp, and yet...perhaps grasping is the problem. is there a way to receive without selfishness? without closing my fingers into fists around something that started out good? the tentacles of defeat still try to latch onto me, but soon they will be done away with. great things are possible. and maybe someday i'll realize great things are possible for me.


- liz r. - 7/8/2002