This writing thing, I love it. But I have strange conceptions about it. I think that I can write only when I have something juicy going on, like a moment when I began to really see my child, or moments when I overcame a difficult phase in my life.
I absolutely shut down shop when I am wading through difficult waters…when it seems like the difficult phase I’m going through will take a long time to pass. I also can’t write when I am feeling like I have nothing to offer to others who read or to myself. When I am mindlessly dragging myself through life.
I love conceiving an idea, letting it grow in my mind and heart, I love playing with words and I love how musical sentences can be when you weave them that way. I love how words transform and give meaning to my experience. I also love how they open my heart out and make me more grateful, kind, calm and whole. But sometimes this very thing is such an effort.
I love playing with notions of mindfulness, love, compassion, hate, jealousy, desire , anger, freedom, independence, interdependence and so forth and how they play out in my life and that of others . But I can play with these notions only when I am feeling somewhat accepting of myself and my present moment.
When I am angry and overwhelmed, I am a mess and cannot stitch two words together. When I am sad or longing for someone I am poetic, deep even. When I am happy I am busy celebrating it, not writing.
Nevertheless, I don’t think I have ever written like this. And I am realising that writing like everything else is practice. A daily practice of just returning to the now, of returning to myself, of bearing witness to my life and experiences, again and again.
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