Writing About Not Writing
Lessons in fog, darkness, light
I’m not going to write about new year goals and resolutions (or lack thereof). I’m not going to reflect on the year that’s passed, or things that are yet to come. Instead, I’m going to write about not writing.
While intention and action can readily be summoned when one desires to write, I’ve noticed how inspiration is a different kind of animal entirely. While I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like these past weeks, I’m grateful for the ability to shift from judgment to a recognition that I may just be in a season of repose, attuning to deeper wisdom arising.
This is delicate territory, a gestation of sorts, where percolating insights and creations aren’t yet ready to be exposed. In times like this, I find it helpful to remember that we humans are built for dwelling in seasons of darkness, for patience, for trusting the abiding loyalty of light.
It’s been foggy these days leading up to the annual turn around the wheel. Each morning I wake and glance out the window, wondering if it’s my eyes that are hazy, or whether it’s truly a muted reality.
The fog is thick like lingering smoke or silhouettes of shadowy white. I can’t quite tell if it feels comforting or oppressive. It can be unnerving knowing/hoping that something still exists, yet is no longer accessible through the once-predictable sense of sight. (And, yes, this is just one of the many heartbreaking dichotomies grievers must navigate).
I’m trying to remember what the world felt like before I could pick up the phone or open the laptop and instantly connect to a digital universe that is at once disturbingly pernicious and oddly enticing. My inbox is bursting at the seams, inundated with bright shiny course offerings and titillating discounts. I am weary of all of them, even if some are helpful and inspired.
Nothing is wrong, per se. Like many of us, I’m just tired of trying to keep up in a realm of intangibles, which feels increasingly unnatural, ungraspable, foggy.
And yet, my work mostly consists of dwelling in an online space; plucking thoughts from nebulous nothing, and sculpting them into something coherent that slowly takes shape through content and format. Hopefully (with a little heart and intention), I will have crafted a post that evokes reflection or curiosity, neatly situated in this cloud-based filing cabinet. Sort of like a wee story nestled in a growing pile of magazines collecting dust on a corner table; only it exists quite tenuously now, one click of the delete button and poof! It’s all a fading memory.
Isn’t it just like that with this fragile world in which we live? We are tethered to the wild by breath and body, needing connection to both elements and others (seen and unseen) in order to survive and thrive.
Bit of a push/pull, this situation we find ourselves in, as connection with other humans brings both comfort and challenge. It’s become far too easy for communication to be maintained in a marginal way through the occasional text, email, post like. It’s as though we’ve attempted to create the best of both worlds, and yet we know this stunted connection is woefully inadequate.
How to dwell in these murky molecules, with nothing at my fingertips but the clickety-clack of a keyboard for sustenance? How to support myself, while not getting lost in a sea of dissolving connections? How to stay tethered to what’s real in body, heart, mind?
Later, the fog will lift and I will see beyond the veil of white into the ripening cornucopia of color. Later, I will ease myself into this new day, lighter for letting go of undue pressures. Later, I will touch something earthy and real; I will offer something, cherish something, receive something.
And so, dear reader, in the spirit of giving - please accept this New Year blessing, sent from the hearth of my riverside home, in the lingering cradle of night.
May you trust what you know to be true, in places words cannot find.
May you feel your way through darkness and mist, ears perked for the sound of the foghorn, eyes fixed on the inner glow of some deep navigational light.
EYE MASK, by Denise Levertov
In this dark I rest,
unready for the light
which dawns day after day,
eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need more of the night before I open
eyes and heart to illumination.
I must still grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.
