Writing About Not Writing
Beloveds,
I took a break from regular writing this past week, but rhythms are such a comfort to me that I wanted to pop into this space like I do each Monday. I am delighted that you have found a place for and a joy in these weekly words over the last couple of months. The space you are holding has been felt deeply on my side of the screen.
This is week ten of this space. I hate odd numbers. I like milestones. All weekend I have thought how very dumb it is to end my writing streak at nine weeks. Ten would have been fun to celebrate, and nine is a gross number.
I kid you not, I just tried to force-write a poem about how my body is demanding rest. Come to find out, force-writing is quite the opposite of rest. These ten weeks have shown me that I can and do want to write each week, and I am realizing it is going to require a tense balance between showing up no matter what and listening to my inner voice asking for a break.
I am not sure what your “writing” is. The thing you can and want to do every week. The thing you want to show up for no matter what. The thing (or two or three) that feel as natural to you as breathing. The thing that may be work, but it’s the good kind of work that leads to the good kind of tired. The thing you know makes for you a better day, but also can so easily slip off the calendar.
And I hold with many of you that you are still searching for your “writing.” The discerning and playing and stumbling and feeling like everyone else has it figured out is in and of itself something that asks for a relentless showing up and will fail to be good without rest.
How do we make sure “the thing,” our thing, holds the place in our lives that we want and need it to without losing the otherworldly nature it holds? How do we make sure we prioritize our thing without strangling it? Without it strangling us?
We must all laugh here that I have written five hundred words on a week where I told you I wasn’t writing. Even when I am not writing, I’m writing. And I wonder if that is one of the soft middle places where we can land as we carve out a life that welcomes our “thing.” That when something is like breathing to us, sometimes we sit upright and do intentional deep breathing exercises, and sometimes we lay on the couch and let our lungs go about their natural work.
Whatever your “writing” is, this week I’m praying that you listen to your body (even when it is dumb and you have to stop on an odd number). That you will feel the Spirit guiding you. To practice discipline, to sit down with your craft, your people, your work. To take the breath in your lungs and intentionally breathe deep. And that — just as beautiful and valuable — you will know when to stop writing the poem, to let go for a few days, to let your lungs fill themselves, and to let your thing find you.
With love,
Holly