Always start close.
That's going to be my mantra for this next writing season. I've always posited that some people write to express and others to communicate, and mostly I've put myself in the "to communicate" camp. But more recently, I'm realizing that focusing too much on sending words out zaps some of the joy, wonder and mystery out of it for me.
There needs to be both, if not in equal measure, and maybe sometimes it's one or the other. I'm not doing this for anyone else except myself, and the doing of it is what matters to me. I feel the must-ness of writing, for what purpose, that is unknowable to me and I'm at peace with that.
Sometimes writing feels like how A.A. Milne describes it: "Ideas may drift into other minds, but they do not drift my way. I have to go and fetch them. I know no work manual or mental to equal the appaling heart-breaking anguish of fetching an idea from nowhere."
So I start close. Not with grandiose ideas that I've been daydreaming and munching on, because those need to marinate for a long time. Not with to-do tips or life lessons because I don't feel this need to verbalize them just yet. But with details. The details that surround me.
I woke before the alarm today. A little confused and discomforted, was it too early or did I oversleep? Then the alarm went off and it felt good to be wide awake, not groggy. I put coconut milk in my coffee today, remembering how good coconut cream was in hot coffee during camping last weekend. Must put coconut cream on shopping list. Mom got up too, I made coffee while listening to Joshua and Mark, and then we read our books in silence. I gave Sloane a gazillion kisses to wake her up. She cried when she discovered I threw out some of her school papers, she brushed her hair a gazillion times. To match my kisses? Logan opened the porch door my dad saying, "Come on in man!" and we all laughed. I forgot to make my green smoothie, but I did havetwo cups of coffee with coconut milk.
Sloane got stuck, mentally? She couldn't stop brushing her hair. At first I said it gently, "that's enough honey." Then, exasperated at my 12th time, "PLEASE stop brushing your hair" so I could get her to focus on getting her backpack and water bottle to leave. "It's not smooth," she was fixated and tears sprung to her eyes. I gave her some spiel about how it doesn't matter how her hair looks, it's about how she feels and her attitude. But of course it matters. So I awkwardly did the dance of acknowledging yes it does matter, yes it matters to you so it matters to me, but it's not the most important thing, and still felt like I failed. There was not enough time to cuddle and ask questions. Her tears of course, was probably due to the rushing. Even when there is seemingly ample time, there isn't. I held her face into me, and held her there for as long as I could, both of us pausing, to make up for my flailing words and the lack of time. I miss her today especially because of this. I know she'll be over it in a few minutes, but I don't get to see her recover. But at the end of the day, I will get to draw her into me again, and usually by then she is ready to talk about it. Solutions and resolutions don't come immediately; we are all learning that.
These are some photos form the end of August. That was a really good month.
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