WRITE DAMMIT!

It’s Christmas day. I’m in my nearly empty library-in-the-making. The deep red walls are still splotchy like worn red leather. I’ll give them one more coat of paint to even out any definite lines but I’ll keep the natural leather appearance as much as possible. 

I’m sitting on the hardwood floor beside a tarp that’s held in place by messy paint cans and painting supplies. No furniture, outlet covers have been removed, painter’s tape lines the ceiling. A work in progress. Possibility. I can picture what it will look like when it’s finished and I’m loving the process of bringing that picture to life.

I’m sitting in here because it feels right. Not in the sense of “right vs. wrong”, but in the sense that it feels like I fit here. It feels like a natural habitat in this moment.

Although it’s Christmas, I’ve taken today to rest. Recover. My kids and I have each done or will be doing something one-on-one for the holidays and this weekend I’ll meet up with all the family. So today I’m home by myself. Today I must write. I choose to be sitting on the floor of an unfinished room, reading poetry, drinking coffee and writing. 

I’ve had big feelings of restlessness lately like I’m being urged forward to do something but I can’t discern what it is. Today I’m led to write and spend time in the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Pablo Neruda, Patti Smith and Rilke. Led by whom? I don’t know. Probably the connective fibers of unseen light that illuminate my path when I follow my passion. So anyway, this is me following.

Together with this eclectic crew of seers, on the floor of my quasi-library, I’m reading and writing.

It’s sometimes hard to name the sentiments inside me, but when I take time to carve the feelings into written words that are wholly honest and true, in full form with no missing angles, gaps or holes, it’s incredibly healing! It feels as if I’m diving into the roiling waters of my emotions and somehow I pull out just the right pieces of sediment and construct them in the likeness of their meaning to translate their form into words. The emotional mud is no longer inside me churning uncomfortably, it’s been processed and now lives outside of me. It’s cathartic for my soul. 

Writing is Word Sculpture. I guess that makes me a Word Sculptor. Cool.

… … …

(I wrote a lot in this journal entry. I’ll spare you the middle and jump to the ending…)

… … …

So after all that writing, after all the writing about writing, after all the analyzing and desire to sort out what I was being nudged to do, what I was being led to understand, what deep and astounding “word sculpture” would appear from the sediments of my muddy emotional turbulence… Well, this is it:

WRITE DAMMIT!

I kid you not. That is the wholly honest and true meaning, the full form; no missing angles, no gaps or holes, the roiling waters of my unnamed agitation pulled out and constructed in the likeness of its meaning. I understand in no uncertain terms that what I was and am being led to do is to WRITE DAMMIT! All caps because it’s serious; writing is an integral part of me that won’t be fully alive until I am exercising it regularly. The exclamation point because it’s emphatic. Even the misspelled, slang conjunction of “damn it” (dammit) says it’s not about being polished. The magic is in writing regularly, not the finished product. 

I shrug my shoulders, tilt my head and smile. I’ll take it!

Note to self: When I’m feeling led to do something but can’t pinpoint what it is that I’m “supposed” to do, don’t look outside myself for the answer. I arrive at the answer by “simply” looking inside and following my desire. Today my desire was to write, and not necessarily as a means to an end. The answer was writing a little bit today. The answer usually isn’t some big activity, new job or new project, it’s the very action of following my curiosity and desires day by day that keeps me aligned with my truest self and illuminates my next step. The accumulation of those steps will produce the your path.

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Creating makes me feel alive. I want you to experience that same vibrancy!