I had a thought that scared the crap out of me after reading ’Civil Disobedience,’ by Henry David Thoreau, in the car this afternoon. I was a passenger, of course, and I was thinking about how nice it was to have a book in my hand again actually reading the printed page.

Suddenly an annoying “what if?” scenario screamed at my mind. 

I mean, what if I got into a car crash and my laptop (which travels with me always) was smashed to such bits that it was un-restorable? Whether I lost life or limb was less relevant to me in the moment.  The fact that my husband was driving ninety miles an hour did nothing to appease my anxiety either.

Then I thought:  Would it even matter?  I mean, I have enough confidence in myself as a writer that I know I will be able to always come up with new ideas and stories.  Somehow, the thought of losing almost three years of scripts, outlines and research scared me to bits though.  I store all of my goodies and tid bits on here.

I have almost three years of writing invested, which is more time than Henry David spent at Walden Pond.

Like Henry, I long for simpler times and isolation.  Not isolation for isolation’s sake, but in order to grasp a better view of the human life and social conditions of our times.  I had no idea I even ran these parallels with him until my essay reading prompted me to look up his other writings via Wikipedia.  Even though he had a pen and I have a keyboard as my instrument, the spirit of the writer runs deep within us both.  I feel this weird, eerie, almost transcendental connection to the dead writer when I read him, his ideas for his time and learn something about his life.

I grasp on to the similarities, yet the contrasts are glaring.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ve been accused of being colloquial in virtually every English class I’ve ever taken.  My twisted mind tells me it’s the writers of the past, the writers that mattered and have stood the test of time are speaking through me.  I feel as though I can channel their energy, like a golden leaf being carried by the wind.

I have felt this way with Joyce, Faulkner, Flaubert—-and so on.  Do our thoughts ever really die with us?  Not for writers, not for mine.  It’s the need and drive to preserve thoughts by making pictures in minds with words that ultimatley drive a writer to write.  At least it is so for me.  We’re historians of a creative type.  Are written words really any different than music notes?  I’m writing symphonies, yet words are only heard when spoken. 

So if I lost everything, I’d simply die in isolation with only the shattered thoughts to keep me company.