"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.
Nov 18, 2006
