Day 14: Universiteit van Amsterdam/Writer, Sealed Envelope

I learned today that I was accepted into the University of Amsterdam. I also learned today I was not quite accepted into the University of Amsterdam. So while I was here, juggling classes, Budapest, Field Studies and trying to ascertain a recommendation from Davidov my mother emails me to tell me I've been accepted and a decision must be made within two weeks. I still haven't sent in a visa application or the letter of recommendation, which they say they'll need before I enroll. I am as confused as you. But not nearly as confused as sunken in-- another step closer to my own self-conception, at least what I can manage at this point. Europe just felt a little more like home. Now home may be where I am for a month. A month before I take a plane to the city where your dizzy on the Amstel Dam. At least hopefully, remember that this whole delicate glass onion of a process relies on an expedient processing time of my application which is not ready. 

But how long I've waited! All the friends that have asked me, "So did you hear back from Amsterdam?" And now, the resounding answer. Frankly, I've come to realize more and more that this is above all something I could do. Never mind the logistics--they will always fall into place so long as there is the drive. I hate myself for saying that, and perhaps I am a little ungrateful in the matter here, too. I have a very large supporting cast and crew as much as I would hate to admit it. Prague has done the trick. The city with her breath has revived me as a writer and now I stand poised and fearless ready to continue the foray into the dark, contracting tunnel-- a place that distraction (albeit, wonderful distraction) in Chicago had precluded. Yesterday I had my first full-fledged conversation in Czech with a waitress. It doesn't take much and as proud of myself as I may be (proudest of all) it is as if my body is begging to use some function which has long since been neglected; an appendix of sorts, suddenly joyed at being able to flex-- granted, very sore from abandon but nevertheless anxious to become an integral part of the body; between the prospects of both Russian and Dutch, this organ may well be competing in the triathlon.

I realized today that I could do freelance work; for newspapers, periodicals, travel websites and I could make money-- not very much, sure--enough for a meager apartment if not in Amsterdam then in Praha; it's the whole wall of requisite college falling down if I can just get a steady stream of prospects-- publication, a survival job sure, freelancing--all by the time I'm out of Amsterdam (a year) and I will have the weight of momentum on my side to just start living that way, much like many other Americans I've met over here. STA keeps airfare dirt cheap for the next six years, I could do this. I really could. It will start alphabetically fashionable with Amsterdam and Artek, this Russian-language literary magazine Davidov has been encouraging me to submit to. There is the additional advantage of being published in another language, regardless of money. I bet plane tickets from Amsterdam to Cincinnati go at 300 euro a pop. Two paychecks as a cafe attendant or bartender. 

It is funny. There is this strange sort of invisible procession as a writer. You begin at 16 or 17, purely as an individualistic, indulging, narcissistic yeah-yeah and you may think you are good, you at least have the conviction in your own work to continue until the time you're 19, 20 when you begin to show your work to others, maybe you already have. Your friends say "He is an incredible writer," or "Have you seen what he can do." "You have to promise to remember me when you're published." Well, these are just friends not literary critics, it doesn't mean much but then maybe your peers and fellow writers begin to acknowledge the gift if they can overcome their own narcissistic obsession and conviction if even momentarily. Then your Professors. Maybe they are "writers" or "authors" maybe not. But they say "This is writing of the highest caliber" and you return to your room after class and pillage your favorite works, read furiously, not even sensibly just for the masturbatory pleasure of it all. All the while honing your craft, ordering replacement parts for the apparatus, refining the technique and of course you ought to be indulging in every distracting whim, never forgetting your life of the self but writing she remains your one true lover. Professors will have suggestions for small publications run by themselves or acquaintances or former students and you send away to these as well. Then you are a published writer-- though not on your own terms. Gathering your provisions and leaving just enough of the garrison, you push forward with the army. With enough failure, dumbhard work, translations into various languages, small successes and dumb luck you might just break the glass ceiling and get published by a big boy; a literary powerhouse and then, by then and given even more time and people's belief in your ability to traverse the tight rope, soar above the awestruck faces and walk on air then you will have the novel or collection of short stories, you'll take a backwards look and see the smiling 16, 17 year old with the bad poetry and you look forward again and there you are, an author, a writer call it what you want cos by then you won't have to-- the world will cal it for you...

Ok. This rosy rimmed picture did just dodge the suffering, the unfathomable feelings of guilt, worthlessness, frustration, backtracking, inadequacy, insecurity, exhaustion, starvation, doubt, sleeplessness, nauseam, trouble, burnoutedness, disaster, heartbreak, failure, catastrophe of success, even greater catastrophe of inconsequentiality, death in the gutter, the sickness, the swelling, the heresy of ancestor worship, the requisite piety of your ancestors, the falls, being lost, hesitation, drunken stupors, academic kiss-ass, betrayal, always-critics, everybody-critics, critics that are actually right and of course the hatred 

but you said you wanted to be a writer, right?