Before the morning muse eludes me

Rushing around in my very early morning routine, cleaning up breakfast, cooking ground turkey and beef for the dogs ( yes, I am really confessing to that), answering email, stripping a bed of sheets and throwing in a load of wash, I tell myself go sit down and write before the morning muse eludes me. These activities create such distraction that I find myself constantly responding to people and circumstance. The day kicks into high gear and I become a human doing instead of a human being.

Carving out quiet time for most people these days requires scheduling. Many people I know have a meditation practice. Quiet the mind, relax, breathe, empty yourself of thought, connect to your higher self, surrender to bliss. Excellent practice for health. At the end of a busy stressful day, many people turn to the media anesthesia of television. Time to relax, be distracted, and feel positive. After all, their life is good in comparison to the guy on the autopsy table in CSI or the folks anxiously waiting for the ransom call with the FBI. Did you ever notice that watching stories like that on the morning news is depressing, but watching it at night in a make believe scenario is considered entertainment? But, I digress. Back to my original train of thought, carving out quiet time to write.

I often do my best thinking and writing in the dark. Before bed, in the middle of the night, or in the predawn hours, I am alone with the voices in my head. No distractions, no need to defend my position, argue my point or justify my feelings to anyone. In that precious time, I get to experience my self, my experiences, my dreams authentically and creatively. Keeping a notepad by the bed to capture a thought worth remembering led to journaling. It is even easier now to write in the dark on my I Pad which doesn't require turning on a lamp. Reading what I wrote by light of day led to the revelation that my love affair with language is not just verbal but has more heft when written. Addicted to reading at an early age, I have always been in awe of authors. Now suddenly I realized that what I think and what I write has some validity, wit or wisdom worth sharing. We share our thoughts in conversation daily, giving opinions and advice with ease. The moment we put it in writing, wow, that suddenly changes everything. The spoken word in conversation can be ephemeral. Depending on the listeners response, you can justify, explain or even take back your words. But the moment you put your thoughts in writing, that is commitment! Taking it to the level of letting other people read your work is like tap dancing naked in public.
But, when I receive the first response of " I love what you wrote", it is such a great feeling, heady, encouraging and exciting.

As a kid, I hated creative writing classes. Back to school and the first dreaded assignment to write what you did over the summer. The moment that white lined piece of paper was placed on my desk, at the correct angle for proper Palmer penmanship, the classic writer's block set in. I did not have a single original, creative thought in my own head. Of course, reading at least thirty books over the summer, I was comparing my efforts to Nancy Drew novels and then later, Shakespeare. But I could write a mean book report. I could wax poetic with great enthusiasm over a book I had read.

This week my book club gathered for dinner at my home. The selection was nonfiction for a change. The author is well renowned and lives locally, Anne Lamott. The title is BIRD BY BIRD Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Candid and witty, Ann shares her experience and insight on the emotional and creative compulsions of would be authors, herself included. She speaks of students in her workshops who all share the gift of loving to read with passion and just wanting to write, whether they are good at it or not. The creative process is work and play together. She says, " Heads spin with ideas and invention. They"ll see the world through new eyes. Everything they see and hear and learn will become grist for the mill."

I realized my feelings were not unique when Ann captured them in words so perfectly. " I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here? Let's think of reverence as awe, as presence in and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you have read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment."

In describing getting started she shares " Yet somehow in the face of all this, you clear a space for the writing voice, hacking away at the others with machetes, and you begin to compose sentences. You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started."

I wish I had written that....