the dead year

"and so I remember the first dead year of writing, when I wanted to be a writer so bad (...) like walking through a thick desert heat with no end in sight (...) everything is empty. nothing you write holds (...) that dead feeling hits hard and permeates the first year (...) if you get through the first year, then you know about it. it will never have the power to defeat you again." - Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind

I've been writing a lot lately. in the evening, lying on my bed with a pen stolen from a hotel room and two giant pillows supporting my body. I've noticed that my voice is slightly different when I write on my journal. it brings me back in the present moment, it is less perfectionist, more daring, and more awake.

in a small café by the fountain on Place Saint Michel or in front of the church of Notre-Dame de Lorrette while waiting for an old friend. the wooden tables reaching all the way out on the sidewalk to the street. I look around and take five minutes to describe it.

in the subway. realizing that the worst feeling as a mother is not when I take my son to the emergency room after he's fallen off the top bunk bed while playing. the worst feeling is when I'm late to pick up my kids at school.

in children's bookstores, where prodigious voices are hiding behind a wolf who doesn't want to be a sheep. oblivious to the echoing sound of screaming little kids.

I write. not a book. I just keep my hand moving. and though it is daunting at times, though no one reads, nods or validates the words I'm putting down, I've rarely felt more alive and exhilarated.

Comments

[kristen]

I love that and I love that you are feeling so exhilerated.

[Ronica]

I am so proud of you.

This is the best thing you've written in a very long time--but I am hoping you no longer need to hear that. You know.

Hugs from across the pond.

[Chris]

I love writing in journals - doesn't it seem like there's a connection between brain and hand and pen that's very different than that between brain and fingers and keyboard?

[shanna]

oh no!!! i'm glad he's ok!! no more playing on the top bunk!! tell him auntie shanna says so!

[Marilyn]

First of all, Natalie is one of my all-time sheroes...since reading "Writing Down the Bones" (and later, "Wild Mind") pretty much changed my life...I just didn't know it at the time...(and isn't that the best way?) I still occasionally pull those books out and open them randomly...because there's something they give me that I get absolutely nowhere else. Secondly, I think there's enormous power in that type of writing...and I seldom do it anymore. But when I do (the Natalie influence) I always do it in cheap spiral notebooks and I always fill the entire page (margins in included). I love beautiful journals, but can't bring myself to let go of my perfectionism when I write in them. But the cheap notebooks?...they bound my censor and unleash what's been cowering behind her. ;) Keep writing!!! xoxox

[Steph]

Well, now I have to get both of Natalie's books, after reading these comments. (Plus, that's my daughter's name!)

I have felt so much like you do right now too. You read on all of these blogs about people writing books and all, and yet for me sometimes it is just about writing my truth on paper that brings me such peace and stability. This was wonderful, Irene.

[la vie en rose]

i know...i know...i know...

[Vanessa]

Glad to see your darling boy's alright. That must have been a fright for both of you.

Keep writing, Irene. You're the best!

[Karyn]

hope you'll continue to find exhilirating inspiration as you move that pen in solitude. i know it will spill over into all that you do.

[laurie]

beautiful piece. very evocative.

[tut-tut]

I agree; the physical act of writing is a great part of the focus of it. Which may be why starting my blog has been so difficult; the typing instead of writing. And I haven't tackled the multimedia aspect. It seems pedestrian, but something to work through . . .