Several people have asked me why I am writing this blog. I glibly answered the last time someone asked, “It’s a travelogue for inner and outer space.”
And yes that is true. That’s the “back of the blog” one-liner.
But for anyone who is a writer—a writer in their heart—you know you have your own set of reasons. I thought I’d push myself to articulate what exactly IS the point for me.
For starters, it brings me joy. Like any craft, I enjoy the process, mystery, and journey. I would also say that writing is my friend. It’s a constant and an old standby that has never failed me in a world where so much else fails.
So, too, I like the “async” aspect of writing; here, I can feel smart-ish and explore on my own clock and I don’t really care what you think (too much). In spoken conversation, my inner control freak gets uncomfortable. There could even be conflict! Good lord.
But mostly writing just makes me feel better. I have felt some feelings in the last few weeks around isolation, boredom, and loneliness as I was so sick in this foreign landscape and then John got very sick too. I have spent a lot, a lot, of time alone. (Also, isn’t that the new pandemic paradigm?) I don’t as many ready-made “go to” comforts here as I did back in California. There’s no treehouse to run and hide in until the feelings pass. So I turn to the page.
For me, writing is a way out from that lost-ness feeling; it’s a process of drawing a personal map back to that which is constant and stable and loving even as my mood swings push me around. It’s also a way of processing my intake of the world around me—of having a little see-through door installed in me.
I have been reading this book of essays by Mary Oliver (pictured above) called Upstream. I am sure it’s no surprise that I am a huge fangirl of all her writing. Her essay “Of Power and Time” is one of those gems that is truly a direct transmission/teaching about the worlds of the ordinary and the extraordinary—and where the artist/writer/poet sits in that balance.
Why summarize? Here’s what she writes:
Intellectual work sometimes, spiritual work certainly, artistic work always—these are forces … forces that must travel beyond the realm of the hour and restraint of the habit. Nor can the actual work be well separated from the entire life. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is little the creatively inclined person can do but to prepare himself, body and spirit, for the labor to come—for his adventures are all unknown. In truth, the work itself is the adventure. And no artist could go about this work, or would want to, with less than extraordinary energy and concentration. The extraordinary is what art is about. …
I could go on and on about all the ways I relate to her but mostly I think she captures the magical quality of why some people just feel compelled to use language to dig at the qualities of the limitless. Remember when I blogged a few months about my commitment to writing this year? In some ways what I was really saying was less about the commitment to writing per se (e.g. words on a screen) but really about my commitment to pushing to the edge of exploring the known and unknown. Words (and yoga and trail running) are just some of the ways I do that, and surely you have your own ways.
I am choosing the way of the writer. Which is to say choosing the way of the seeker. It’s less about any destination (since I think we can all agree there is none) but more about an inner purpose to lean into. This is what is sitting at the top of my pyramid.
Its concern is at the edge, and the making of form out of the formlessness that is beyond the edge.
So there you go. Don’t be alarmed if some very basic poetry starts coming your way soon. <3