writer's block

Dear Diary,


I have been on this island for 42 days now. Each day I tell myself that I will see something new. Sometimes I convince myself that I do, but late at night, under the stars, I realize that most of the new things I see are really only a result of my remembering something different and watching that memory replay itself on the thing before me. And I realize that I get so intent on watching these memories I do not recognize that I don't really see what is there. That's what I promise myself I will remember the next day as I walk around, to try and separate my wishes from what is before me on the ground.


I started writing again. Not a lot. Nothing I am really proud of. In a way it is working for me that I only have a few hours to scratch the words in the sand before the tide comes in and washes them away. When I remember them later they always seem more profound then they probably had been.


I have made friends with one of the small rodents that lives at the edge of the forest. Well...I think I have, I really...I came out of the shelter the other morning and saw a few of them together and realized that I really couldn't tell the difference between any of them. I assumed the one that was less scared of me is the one I have been talking to. I assume that the same one keeps visiting because he finds me interesting.


Or maybe I am just something new that he doesn't see because he is viewing his memory as it is written on my body. I do it. Makes sense he would too. But I only allow myself to think that way for a count of 60 and then force myself to forget that as a possibility.


I wish there was a way I could go back and read what I have written to you before. Just so I could be sure I was not repeating myself and could maybe pick up a thought were I left off. But when I am done writing, and lay my arm down by my side, my finger no longer etching the letters onto the sky, the words can only be seen as long as I do not close my eyes. And once I have, the book is closed and put away. I have yet to figure out how to open it to anything but a new page.


Dear diary, will you remember me when I am gone? And do you have some way to speak to whoever comes and tell them I was here after my bones have become part of this land?


I wonder if that is what I walk on during the day, this endless pure white sand. Is the warmth of the sun held by bodies that have crumbled to lie beneath my feet? Is that why it feels so good on my skin no matter how often I walk the repeat? Are their souls keeping me company? Or have no other sailors been lost on this beach, but me?


-c



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