Sometimes writing is a bridge to nowhere – it’s an end unto itself. It’s just pleasure for pleasure’s sake.
Other times, writing is catharsis. I’ve started back with those “morning pages” — in which you write 3 full pages, by hand, and then stuff those pages into an envelope to rest. The hope is that you do so in the morning, although I hardly ever do. The other hope is that you do not edit yourself, which I sometimes do. The last hope is that you should not return to these pages to review them – which I almost always do – even if years later.
I’ve found that oftentimes I did not know I needed to release something – an emotion, an anxiety, a frustration – until I’ve written 38 other lines of nonsense…and then it shows up on the page, through the ink blots. The words end up elucidating something that was resting (hiding?) within.
I find it remarkable how often writing can be a bridge to find my true self, sometimes. That is why I’ve started to write again. That is why I’ve started to “let myself” read poetry whenever I please. That is why I have taken to writing Italian sonnets for fun.
And that is why I’ve been trying to even walk slower, at a perceptively slow cadence, on those days and moments when I really do not need to rush.
I am trying.
[image by slimmer jimmer]