looking inside
It is starting to be long john weather here. The red line on the thermometer never crept past 30 degees today, and the air bites at exposed cheeks. The light at dusk strikes the buildings with sharpness. There is no depth to it like in the summer, or even in the autumn when the rays seem to fall in long angles. Now, the light is filterless and bright; shadows spilling onto the streets in dark contrast.
Winter has a way of making me look at my life starkly, as though I were seeing my soul in series of x-rays. Like the fields of corn stalks tilled into frozen soil or the rocky hilltops exposed below the silhouettes of trunks and branches, when I look in on myself I see mostly skeletons. I go back over the writing I have done in years past, and am stunned at my own depth, yet feel incapable of duplicating it. The voice of my shadow that always whispers “failure,” harps louder now.
I have new canvasses and the longing to paint, but a terror to pick up the brush. Everything I make might be ugly. Words stalk me at indecent times when I have no notebook, no means of record. But when I sit at the computer with an hour of quiet stolen from other tasks, nothing comes except mouthfuls of hesitation.
Natalie Goldberg says it doesn’t matter. She says “One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.” I try to come back to this. To simply write. To get out my paints and follow the movement of my hand. To trust that I will once again feel the divine moving through the branches of my soul like wind.
But like the flock of startled crows I saw today, whirling black specks against the grey sky above the rooftops, I become easily scattered. I know this is to be expected in this time: this collision of moments when we are making choices about our future happen now. Buying this house isn’t just buying a house for me. It’s about fulfilling a dream that has been a part of my mental geography for as long as I can remember.
I am like that. When I loose myself in my thoughts, I am lost in a specific geography. I have always been someone who has felt closely tied to the land. I have worked on farms, milked cows, grown gardens, and I know that these things provide a rich soil for my creative life. I long to put down roots in this place. Keep bees, learn to ride horses.
So I am here in the midst of making something I’ve always imagined a reality, and it feels awkward like I’m trying to help hatch a baby bird. They are so fragile and ugly and gawky when they first peck their way out of the shell they’ve lived inside for weeks. Then they just sit there in the nest, all beak, squawking.
It’s cold out. The mud is frozen solid and our apartment is too small. I can’t help squawking, doubting that flight will ever be possible. The pessimist in me chokes at the stir-crazy feeling I know I’ll have we finally close the deal after the new year and start to rip down walls. It will take months of effort before anything resembles anything I imagine. This process should be familiar. It is the one I face every day when I come to the blank screen or the empty canvass and struggle with a mess of words or lines. I should know. The good stuff only happens when I’m patient.
Homefront, The way I operate |8 Responses to “looking inside”
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What an interesting post…I know exactly how you feel, but my only suggestion (I have such a need to fix things - lol) is to just write…like when you’re doing NaNoWriMo and let your fingers spill out the written diarrhea…..something good will come of it, much UNLIKE diarrhea…….course when diarrhea strikes, I often lose a few pounds……..which is good…..oh God I HAVE to go to bed!
I have had times like this as well. You are so talented though that even in your less inspired moments, you manage to put words together in such a way that it’s like a poem. You are gifted that way, Christina.
Hang in there…I think you’re going to have a great new year!
Your words are beautiful and true…
“To trust that I will once again feel the divine moving through the branches of my soul like wind.”
Reading about your journey, your struggles and triumps encourages me to keep working on my creative dreams. Having patience and trust…
Oh Christina!! I honestly wish I could write like you every day
What a perfectly worded and perfectly expressive post.
OK, see this is how I live MOST of the time. I am always afraid to pick up a pen or paints because what if it’s not perfect? I can get words into my blog but cannot create stories like I used to; I have yet to touch my canvas or start my postcards.
I guess I have to trust that it will get easier. Living in SoCal with the sun so often on my face, it’s probably easier.
Try this: don’t write everything. Just write words or phrases to hint at what you’re trying to say. Then take a nap or hot shower. For me, the words or phrases that are important will, as the hot water runs over my back, grow into full fledged sentences and ideas. Let me know if this works for you. I have other tools like this!
yes, it comes when your patient, and when your willing to move…to take the risk…to leap…to trust. beautiful words as always.
your words, as always, are so eloquent and honest. I’m rooting for you, hoping the process goes by quickly, and your dreams come into realization without too much waiting and anticipation.
Natalie also says, “Writing, too, is ninety percent listening. You listen so deeply to the space around you that it fills you, and when you write it pours out of you. If you can capture that reality around you, your writing needs nothing else.” You do that beautifully every day, my dear.