On Writing

Over the years, which i now realize have been many, as I can trace my desire to write back to about age 6, my writing practice has been through an evolution. Starting with short stories that bordered the terrain between magic and reality, and later shifting into more free form word play, it has almost always had a life of it's own. Stories have emerged out of impressions and dreams, rarely by design, blog posts sprout from the experience of being alive. Falling in love, being disappointed, going for a walk or a ski, grappling with my own 'baggage' and all it's iterations in my life.  What I sense most often is that what I am writing about, ultimately, is universal. The storyline behind it is not the point; what emerges as I contend with that storyline is. I am often fascinated and humbled by how people respond to what I write, sometimes it seems to resonate as if the sentiments have been taken out of their own experience. Some people have taken meanings which were not intended or imagined when I sat down to compose. And I know still others read my ramblings and get lost or confused by what I have set down.

What i know about this process is that what emerges from whatever beginnings I craft is usually unexpected and unplanned. Occasionally my writing has gotten me into trouble, or has upset people - I'm sure more times than I am aware - but it is a process less about exposing others and more about exposing myself, and the truths and wisdom that lies embedded somewhere in my unconscious. In reality, even when I sit down to write about something specific, it rarely stays that way. If there was a person involved, they have not been the topic, only the conduit. My writing is not about the messenger, it is about the message that I am discerning. In coming to the keyboard and starting something, regardless of where that starting point is, I open up a world of possibility - new ways of seeing. It is a method to transcend difficulty and express gratitude. From pain, something joyful emerges. From anger I weave my way in words towards acceptance. From an obsessive mind I cultivate more peace. From an ugly set of circumstances I craft something beautiful. Just by sitting down to write and letting the words go where they will, spilling out and taking a form of their own on the page. 

Sometimes I feels stilted, like now, but mostly I am able to write my way out of the things that have me stuck. It may not seem like it sometimes, but sitting down at this keyboard and committing things to this online memory bank has been a way to release all that I am still unsure and unresolved about into the ether. Far from an expression of certainty, this writing down the bones is a way I have had of opening up to and becoming more comfortable with ambiguity. Of processing the raw materials I have to work with in this life. I often feel more grounded after I write, more settled into myself and at peace, but it is less about getting things right, and more about knowing that there is always something about to change. The great paradox of the 'art of staying put' is that it is woven with the threads of transience.