Five hundred words may not sound like much or seem as if it is a huge challenge. So, why is it a big deal? Joining a blogging commitment to write 500 words a day for 31 days scares me to death.
Why?
I want to be a writer. There. I said it.
The minute I say it, my stomach hurts. An intimidating and terrifying endeavor.
I have always written in a journal. Scribbled, doodled and wrote. At times I have felt as if my mind couldn't process all of the words and ideas and dreams until I put my pen to paper. However, my mind works in a series of pictures and associations and in the linear fashion. I struggle with transposing thoughts, letters and words at times. When I'm tired, my family teases me as I struggle to fill in the blanks.
Reading is a desire that drives me. As a young child, I longed for more stories and more books. It was as if I would starve, if I could not read. The book mobile would come to our one room school and it was the light of my life. The smell of the musty old books and lingering gasoline. The heavy brown box with the handle in it, I carried into the back of the truck to fill as much as I would be allowed. Animals, children, adventures, exploration, land...filled my soul with a desire to know more. I read to connect new learning to the old. To integrate experience and knowledge.
Today my shelves are filled with a dizzying variety of books. Permaculture, Bible, gardening, native edibles, training animals, psychology, theology, mediation, sociology, education etc. etc.
I takes notes as I read and scribble quotes on paper or receipts or the back of an envelope if it is all I have. Writing down helps me to keep hold of that which I am reading. It is my way of collecting it. Holding it.
College was like drinking water from a fire hose. I almost couldn't take it. When I went without children or responsibility, I could read every word. If the book mentioned another title or author, I would go check that book out as well.
It wasn't until I was attempting school again with middle and elementary school children at home, I learned I didn't have to read every word of every text book. I felt ashamed. How could I waste all of those words? I tried to take everything. And I was filled with shame when I couldn't do it all.
But now...I have the freedom and the drive to study and dig and study more into what I want to learn. To build the networks and linkages and see how it comes together.
From my journal a few weeks ago.
"Why am I writing? I write to learn. To connect. To clarify. Writing to process and organize my feelings. To pray. To dream and to remember. Writing to change me so I can in turn change my family tree. To become aware of motives, thoughts, patterns and tendencies. I write for freedom. Freedom to say and to be whomever I want to be. I write to hide from judgement and evaluation. I write for peace.
What do I have to say that would add value to someone's life? Why do I think I have a message? I don't. I just have my story. My words. My failure. And I believe in the power of the authentic and the ordinary. I believe it is the ordinary and daily moments and in the individual stories and lives that the past links to the present and gives me the courage for the future. Life layered upon life and history upon history within the context of place and time."
So, I am writing. Writing in this place, where I'm committed to be honest and open and raw.
I believe the more aware become of ourselves, the more we have to offer those around us. I see my life as the series of breaks feeding the river I grew up near. As if all of my life is converging to this time.
Socrates said, "Let him who would move the world, first move himself." Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped, "Nothing can bring you peace, but yourself." And oh how the world needs peace. In order to be the type of person who can bring a little more peace, I have to discover it within me. Or rather, to come to it with me. To stop fighting and hating this person within my shoes and to accept without judgement my own thoughts, ideas, feelings and dreams.
And I don't want to forget my life. My memories. The people and the moments important to me. My words keep alive all that I treasure. W.H. Murray states, It is not memory as such that fails, but ability to extract the detail from its pigeon holes. That ability improves with daily practice: especially, the concentrated practice I was in a position to give it. In courage of time-months in my experience-the detail comes more and more copiously until it grows to full flood and color."
It is my prayer to use writing as the instrument to help my mind grow in awareness and perception. That I embrace my wide interest in people, events, land or ideas.
I'm writing about the freedom of acceptance and presence.
Right now? I'm just writing.
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