What is Resin, Anyways?

May 16, 2024

My mom asked me the other day out of curiosity why I write, moreover why I publish what I write. And ironically for someone who seems to have a lot to say, I found myself too stumped to answer.

I equate the question to kind of like asking a musician why they upload their songs somewhere rather than keep them in their saved files. Perhaps logically, that is the way they cast a line for fame, for recognition. But I couldn’t possibly believe that every musician I admire shared their work solely for the publicity that followed. Think Mitski, Adrienne Lenker, Fiona Applegate, Bjork. I don’t think those ladies gave a rip about their publicity stats. Maybe they shared it because the melody was just nice and they thought others could connect with it their words, their moments that they kept in resin, a little replayable code on Spotify that lasts as long as they pay whatever fee they oughta.

That’s how I like to see it, at least. Maybe the concept of writing or publishing work is similar; to write about something that moves you, and then sharing that tune with someone else because you think they might dig it. Maybe.

But what does the tune become if not shared?

Does the message dissolve if not heard?

How far does it reach with only one recipient?

Would it have morphed, shifted, stretched had it stayed where it began?

At what point of a tune’s conception does the intention switch from mine to yours?

If a tree falls in the middle of the forest, does it even make a sound?

This is my descension into madness.

Still, sharing feels like more of a conscious choice than the initial craft. Like one intentional pace in a mapped out direction. Destination: visibility. I continued to dig for the answer as to why I post here. To me, sharing what I write feels like the last step of a passionate thought, like resin over an oil painting. Maybe the resin over an abstract, arguably shitty, oil painting that hangs on the spare wall of a seasonal art gallery.

Well hey, at least it got space in a gallery though, right?

I feel like when I write, I give myself more space to ruminate on these stories and these feelings they tend not to part with. When I write, I can detach myself from them both in some way by putting them on paper. When I finally need a break from juggling them around in my noggin’, I tuck them in with paper and pen. When I fatigue from holding them too heavily on my soul, I clickclack this keyboard until they become lighter. They still remain part of me as I seek the words to describe them, but in the slightest way, I am given a break from being their host.

I read that everytime you solve a problem and don’t document how, you’re basically deleting that knowledge, those answers, for you and everyone else. Listen, I have no answers. 

But for posterity’s sake, I guess I’ll continue writing.

It guess writing how you feel is like putting the recipe for a dish you made onto an index card for a friend to hold onto. You can savor it all now and fill your tummy up with all things enriching. Then later, upon reference, it can be experienced again by different taste buds. Maybe it’s like making a photo album of your trip to Alaska before you had kids, and in each flimsy pocket of plastic is etched with little descriptions of what you saw on your whale watching tour. This way, you can allow someone a peek into the things you got to see and feel. The biting cold, the fin of a humpback, the mist that sprays your face from the bow of the boat slicing into the ocean. You, but different. You, before you knew all the things you know now.

The recipe book and the photo album wait patiently to be revisited, for posterity’s sake.

So here I’ll share with you my sightings of little marine animals in the treacherous Alaskan waters and tell you just how much salt I typically sprinkle in my great aunt Lucy’s peach cobbler.

I think that to share something in words, a feeling or idea, signifies that I feel assured enough about whatever little lily pad I landed on after lots and lots of hopping around. That whatever I decide to publish, upload, or send in the mail indicates that I allow it to reflect who I am. It means that these stories I nurture and disclose, are sewn together piece by piece, being woven into me like patch work. Patches full of laughter, some cringe, lots joy, melancholy moments, and reflection. They become colorful pieces of fabric that make up the parts of one dependable, soft, and if you inspect deeply enough, awkwardly stitched quilt.

I’ve noticed that sometimes there is a cost with telling these scenes of a story and preserving them in this resin. The cost is pain. These characters that I have met live on in my mind, on paper, and occasionally on my mere fraction of an internet domain far longer than I do in theirs.

You will say, “but you don’t know that for sure!”, but I am convicted because I can’t help but mull over things long after they have expired. And I know I shouldn’t keep touching it. The best wine is left to age.

But gee wiz, sometimes cheap wine is all I can afford.

Maybe it is the price of storytelling, ol’ friend; holding onto things that sting a bit so you can finally pour the resin and remember what you learned from it. One day you’ll ruminate on it all but you just got to stay the course, and package it up neatly when you’re done. Sometimes the pain is dwelling on the continuation of a story that could have been, should have been, or even extending my neck to see if they want any part in a sequel. Don’t do sequels if they can be avoided. Everybody knows the first Shrek is better than Shrek 2.

In the meantime, I carry around the plot and the feelings that accompany. I lug them both around, waiting to make sense of it all. I wait and twitch and tremble and tap.

Time eventually equalizes and I revisit it beneath a quieter and calmer light.

Alas, I pour the resin, and it all becomes more a part of me than I expected.