Words that fill me up
Posted on | February 2, 2006 |
Blue Poppy calls it molting, and the gawky, awkward, half-feathered stage of creative flux is a bit like that, I think. This week I’ve begun to realize just how easily I allow myself to loose sight of the deeper currents in my life. How I smear over them with surface stuff, act overwhelmed, or antsy or angry, when really my inner self is asking to be heard. I’ve started to stop, when I hear myself take on a certain impatient snippy tone—and doing a little check in: asking myself what I really need, what I’m really feeling anxious or antsy about.
I’ve discovered I have a torrent of irrational worries running just below the surface. Many of these worries revolve around my son: the pedantic little whispers of guilt and anxiety I think every new parent must hear. But there are also other voices that whisper the narratives of my unvoiced fear of failure—or success, depending which way that coin is tossed.
This week’s challenge in The Artist’s Way, was not to read anything. And, as Cameron predicted I balked at this, but not for the reasons she laid out anticipating my resistance. Since my son’s birth, I don’t have the chunks of time commuting back and forth on the train that I used to have to sink my teeth into a book, and the leisure of reading over a bowl of cereal has gone out the window (along with sleeping in, or being able go to the bathroom unattended). Overall I have read much less this year than in any year prior, and this week I realized that there is a great hunger in my being for good stories and true words.
So instead of NOT reading this week, I decided to bring new attention to my reading life—and to make conscious choices about reading, or not.
Instead of reading my favorite blogs, tonight I did art. For hours. And it was exhilarating to sit with a big pot of tea—talking on the phone with one of my beloved friends, and paint. But it was also exhilarating this morning to make the choice TO read, consciously and deeply from The Answers Are Inside the Mountains by William Stafford.
His words about writing, about poetry, and about creating are food for my soul. His sentences are saturated with intent observations about being human in this world, and his writing conveys and a deep sense of gratitude. This resonates with me, and I feel satisfied when I take the time to read his words.
I continue to watch myself teeter back and forth on a tightrope of annoyance and gratitude at having begun The Artist’s Way. I do not find Cameron’s writing to be rich with original thought or nourishing for my soul in the way that Stafford’s poems are, and often I resent her presumptions about audience (I do not feel in recovery, nor I do not feel stifled creatively.) But much fruit has come from responding to her questioning and pushing. I am growing as a result. Molting even, and I’ll welcome a new set of wings.
So for the rest of the week I will continue to read, but to be alert to it. Each time my eyes are pulled to the page I will take note. I want to try to understand this hunger I have for words—and I want to be clear about the times when I use them as escape. Like eating well, my intent is to read well.
(The above image is from a series of small pieces I’m doing for a postcard swap.)
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16 Responses to “Words that fill me up”
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February 2nd, 2006 @ 7:46 am
Fabulous. I wish I were as far along the journey as you are, but with inspiration from the Artist’s Way and people like you, I’m on my way. Today you’ve helped me understand better that expressing yourself creatively helps pull your life together. I am starting to carve out time for myself (and it now doesn’t involve spending money at the mall!) without feeling guilty. As always, thanks for sharing your writing and art.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 9:05 am
William Stafford is one of the greats. You make good choices, and I love how you stop to think about what you are doing and WHY. More people should try that, the world would be a better place
February 2nd, 2006 @ 9:57 am
My mom always used to tell me that when I was getting antsy, angry or flustered that I should stop and think “HALT” to myself. Hungry. Angry. Lonely. Tired. One of those things, she’d say, could be attributed to how I was feeling at that exact moment.
It drove me nuts when she said that.
She was right.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 10:00 am
I am also doing AW and found the same
issues with it…I don’t feel that I
am “recovering” from any “blockage”
and I find the wording to be sort of,
well, hokey for me, by times.
I also balked at the reading deprivation.
Reading is truly what inspires me,
and fills me with ideas and inspiration
and longing and desire to be doing something,to be creating something.
I chose not to do the reading deprivation
loosely along the same lines that you did.
I read my favorite blogs, and books that speak to me. I am trying to be aware of reading “just to kill time” so I am being very aware of what I am ingesting.
I do not want to give up on AW. I am enjoying much of it. But it is also just not in my nature to think that I have
to do it a certain way to the exact detail.
I would sooner forge my own path.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 11:41 am
As usual, I am filled with admiration for you. Your self control and mindfulness - I wish I had an nth of a degree of what you have! What a wise way to look at it - I decided myself that no reading is just not possible for me - but that less reading IS. And Mr. Stafford is someone I’m putting on my ‘must read’ list, for filling the well and feeding my SOUL.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
I’m looking forward to reading Stafford’s book–and as always, to reading your writing every day. Love that image.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
“…act overwhelmed, or antsy or angry, when really my inner self is asking to be heard…”
deep breath…*yes*…exactly that. i will *listen* more closely to hear what’s *underneath* my *act*ions. there is much wisdom in that. oh-oh-oh…can i just say…i hope that ‘postcard swap’ you mentioned is the one i’m a part of too ‘cuz that fish card is rockin’ my RIVER - the colors are delicious! it feels similar to the illustrations from ‘griffin and sabine’ by nick bantock. i look forward to checking out the book by w. stafford…the title has taken me far away already.
be WELL, miss christina!
February 2nd, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
Oh my gawd! I am the first to say YOU WON!!!! AAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!! Congratulations, Christina!! Best of Blogs! Woo hoo. I’m beside myself.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 3:10 pm
OOOH squeeeeal! Lucinda, you rock my world. How exciting!! Yipeeee!
February 2nd, 2006 @ 3:36 pm
Congratulations, Christina!!
February 2nd, 2006 @ 4:46 pm
Christina … I had the same experience in the first year of HH’s life … and only read books when on the road for my work … to fill the terrible hole in my heart from being away from home … Now I have found the writing of people like you - in the blogshpere … I am mixed about it - and miss the long, slow read of hours and days, feeling the soft pages in my hands.
February 2nd, 2006 @ 5:38 pm
i love your take on cameron’s challenge. every time i’ve worked through AW i’ve never been able to do this exercise. like you, reading is something i love but don’t often get time for. i felt like giving up my small bit of reading time was punishment. so i never complied.
February 3rd, 2006 @ 8:45 pm
i am so behind in reading blogs…and yet i am glad because now i am here reading these words, on this day, in this moment. just what i needed to absorb today. thank you.
and i just might have to have a poetry reading with mr. stafford in the bathtub later this evening…
February 6th, 2006 @ 12:59 am
I feel similarly about my Artists Way experience. I too find Cameron’s assumptions irritating, and don’t find her writing or idea’s profoundly insightful. Still, like the tightrope between annoyance and gratitude you mention, I do find myself growing through this process. I do find myslef learning, and expanding.
I had never heard of Mr. Stafford until now. I’m taking note. Methinks my next “artists date” will be a trip to the library to check his stuff out.
February 16th, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
Excellent point of view. I wish there were more comments like this. I must say this is one of the betters sites I have come across –Regard, Nick
February 18th, 2006 @ 3:20 pm
I’m SO behind in AW…to the point of wondering if I should just jump off the train entirely, since I’m barely hanging on by a fingernail And I understand your comments about Cameron…I’ve been through AW before and have similar feelings about it. I didn’t even know that week was about not reading until an email reminded me…but, I, too, went the other direction. Without my blogging life to nurture me that week, I NEEDED to read but did so selectively and chose things that would nourish and inspire me.