Unborne? I guess that should say "unborn" but it seems more balanced with the "e" at the end, don't you think? And it adds the connotation of bearing a burden. Maybe I'll borrow it from nonexistence for this posting.
I have been ruminating on some of MmeBookling's thoughts about the creative journey this morning. It has brought back memories of childhood aspirations and wondering about soul-proximal potential. I have always thought reading and writing to be something very "soul-centric" for me... a stunted creative journey. In the space and luxury of childhood, reading and writing were a mammoth of my days. Their absence in my life now causes me to weigh whether this hiatus is merited... a worthwhile sacrifice? What is the cost to my present, my future, my soul, my family?
As I steal moments with the laptop, Olive is playing with a cup of cotton balls on the floor--moving them one by one from the ottoman to the cup and then dumping them all over the floor. Well, now she has moved on to a ukulele, its dissonant notes almost pleasant.
In truth, the pace of motherhood is not the primary reason the pen and keyboard have remained distant. It is my aversion to producing drab drivel that has kept me away. I don't want to write if nothing good will come out. And time and distance have made me increasingly hesitant. Still, work doesn't usually appeal until you are elbows deep in it. Writing feels much the same to me--as if there is nothing to write until I really "get in there."
So here's my first investment in "getting elbows deep" and in bearing... to the end of something being born.
1 comment:
The best way to write is never to judge it. Why is writing only worth it if it is "good." Isn't self-expression in and of itself, even the cross and inane details of our moods, a good and healthy way to live?
Rilke says, "Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist"
To me, writing cannot be this BIG thing I do for myself. It has to be as natural to my body as sleep, as a conversation with Joel, as eating and breathing and just being. The more we do it, the better and richer and "GOODER" it gets. We can't expect to produce good writing if we are doing it only every other year.
I guess it's just a commitment to do the work.
Post a Comment