The other day I had a rare moment of solitude after I dropped my husband off at the office, and drove back home All By Myself. I took the long way, the scenic route along the length of Lake Washington. As I drove, with the water and sun to my left, and mansions to my right, I pondered the week ahead and how I would spend the luxury of down time that would accompany the recovery from my upcoming surgery.
I would get caught up on my correspondence, do my taxes, get a number of blog posts prepared in advance, organize our finances, get started writing a series I’ve been plotting, edit a few thousand photographs, work my way through a stack of books I’ve been longing to read…
My head was racing as I pondered all the projects I’d finally have a chance to tackle, when I saw a big fat bald eagle sitting on a tree branch along the side of the road. I had to drive quite a ways ahead to find a place to park the car, then grabbed my camera and walked back to his tree. He sat there waiting, and watching me walk between the lake and the road. He waited and watched till I pulled my camera up to my face, then took off before my first click. Three clicks of the camera and he was gone.
But the stop was good for me.
It slowed me down.
I meandered back to the car. I stopped to watch birds play. I kicked a rock around for a while. I sat down and studied moss growing out the side of a stone wall.
It’s been three weeks since that drive, and nearly 3 weeks since my surgery. In that time, I have not done one of the things on my list. I rested. I watched a lot of movies. I colored in coloring books with my daughter. I snuggled. I let more than 2000 additional emails accumulate in my inbox. But, it’s all ok. I needed a rest.
Maybe, one of these days, I will get caught up on my correspondence, but it wont be today. Today, I’m going to snuggle on the couch with my little girl and watch Tinkerbell, and maybe we’ll sing some songs, and make up a few stories.
It took me a while to stop laughing – I mean, there’s not much that does contribute to my writing these days.
And then I gave the question a second look. Is that really true? The things that consume my time and my life – primarily my family and my health, but the little things as well, like laundry and what’s for dinner – get in the way of my writing. They also inform and inspire my writing.
Reducing the time and energy I spend on my family is out of the question. The new normal that is life impacted by cancer dictates that my health must remain a high priority – perhaps that should have been the case all along. Nobody wants me to stop doing laundry – ok, well maybe those of you who only interact with me online may not care, but the population of our area code might. There’s really not much fat to trim.
Oh, you mean all that time I spend on the internet – specifically on facebook? And the TV, too?
Ok, I guess I do have a little down time here and there. But – yes, there’s a but, there’s always a but – my TV and internet time inform and inspire my writing as well. Most of the time, my brain is buzzing with new ideas and perspectives I want to explore and discuss – ideas and perspectives gained through my interactions with these media. My house is full of little scraps of paper on which I scribbled little nuggets of brilliance for future rumination and dissertation.
The rumination I’m good at; I looooooove me a good think. Research makes my fingertips tingle, and my heart race with giddiness. Translating all that brain power into a post? nerve-wracking.
Writing is a declaration, a commitment. Fear of commitment does impact my writing practice. I can mull ideas in my head, comparing them to other ideas, and holding them up to the light without fear of rejection. I have yet to hit the publish button on my blog without experiencing a racing pulse, and a bit of anxiety.
So why do I blog? Why don’t I just keep all those delicious ponderings to myself? Once again, the TV informs my writing: my daughter is watching “Horton Hears a Who” as I type. At this moment in the movie, the Whos are shouting for their lives, “WE ARE HERE!” I imagine all the bloggers of the world, furiously typing away at their keyboards, and the subtext of their carefully chosen and intricately woven prose is the same existential declaration: “We are here!”
Of course, I’m projecting; I can only speak for myself. Pondering my own mortality certainly feeds the need to declare my existence. But it’s more than that; I started my first blog in 2001, 9 years before I was diagnosed with cancer, and 7 years before I found out I was going to be a mom. Long before I felt the urgent need to create a record of myself for my daughter, I was compelled to leave my mark on the world through my writing. The urge to write began when I learned to read.
Despite the urge, I still go day after day without writing. I compose entire essays and posts in my mind as I go about my day, while simultaneously washing the oatmeal from between my daughters toes (no, I don’t know how it got there), and weighing the pros and cons of returning to school in January (I just registered), but when I sit down at the computer my mind goes blank. The prose sings in the amorphous space between my ears, but loses it’s voice as I try to pin it to paper.
I know I’m not alone in this; it’s a common issue for writers.
I also know the cure: Writing anyway, despite the fact that I know the words falling from my fingers are all wrong. Fear seeps in as my fingers hang over the keyboard, hesitating, afraid that what comes out will never measure up to what resides inside. So what if it doesn’t? “There is no such thing as great writing, only great re-writing.” I know this on a logical level, but it takes practice to remind my fingers. I need to stop being judgmental with myself, and I need to write despite the urge to hesitate.
“Writing makes a person very vulnerable. It opens you to public criticism, to ridicule, to rejection. But it also opens conversation and thought. It stirs minds, and touches hearts. It brings us into contact with our souls. So how can it possibly be a waste of time, an idle act, a mistake, a betrayal of truth? Who can possibly tell us not to do it?”
~Joan Chittister, Order of Saint Benedict
What about you?
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