...National Blog Posting Month. I missed a day. There was a good reason for that, a shock of devastation that left me not just without words but in a place where words - since words could change nothing - were beside the point.More to the point, my hope that a daily discipline and achievable aim would foster thought and words, from day to day, proved mostly unfounded. I came face to face with the giant hamster-wheel of drudgery and emptiness standing full in the centre of my mind, with even less space around it than I'd thought there was. However, there was some space,and a trickle of words from time to time, and the other thing I came face to face with was the continuing, increasing fierceness of my need for words and need to pursue this however blocked I feel, however little the result.
Making a space every day to try and write: certainly good. Forcing a result every day and defining lack of words as failure: not good. Beth's lovely recent piece about the need for space between words, for words to take the time they need to germinate and grow, rang many bells, as did her words yesterday, contemplating writing and blogging as practice, part of life, an expression and a deepening of personal experience, as something completely worth pursuing to no end beyond itself. Yes! However hard it is, however tiny the result, I feel that too.
How very few words it takes in the end, when there has been inner void and silence for days, to bring relief, exhilaration and a renewed sense of centreing and presence. However few and difficult the words, it is worth going on.
The search for words, then, is to be taken seriously. The form, the blog, is contingent. I see with amusement that some of the little NaBloPoMo logos I attached to each day's post in November until I missed a day and knew I'd blown it have evanesced, leaving unaccountable spaces! I had simply cut and pasted them in - not, I suppose, what I was meant to do with them. Never mind.
7 comments:
It's just a focus, a possible destination. In the middle of your journey, you can chose a new one. I've often said, there are places you can't get to except by getting lost.
I live in a place where the goal of it's pioneers was California. They made it through one set of mountains, looked at the rest they'd have to cross and decided, This Is The Place.
Well, you did better than I did, regardless of whether 'better' is measured by quantity or quality. And, not surprisingly perhaps, I can relate so well to what you say here: the relentless hamster wheel, the strength of the need for words, for communication, even when fulfilment of that need remains largely blocked.
As you say, it is worth going on...
Be well, Jean...
It's exactly why I've stopped making New Year's resolutions...I never managed to keep any of them. But the more general resolutions of purpose, intent -- those are more like gentle reminders that keep me in the general path and moving. Moving is important for me - not to shut down and get depressed. To get out of bed and write something, eat something, begin the day, try and remember to face it with gratitude.
The authenticity and determination behind your search is one reason I always read your words, Jean. Another is that you write so very well, no matter if there are many words or few.
Yes, as the others said it. I come here and always feel touched by your meditations of words and images. Take care, Jean.
Glancing back through a month's worth of your words and images, I'd say that this was a real success from a regular reader's standpoint. A lot of very high-quality stuff there. And don't forget the lovely submission to qarrtsiluni, which will probably appear sometime next week.
But yeah, I don't see the point of production-oriented resolutions. We are not machines; why should we want to emulate them?
Hugs.
Dave's right, on both counts, it was all good stuff, but forcing outcomes is a bit pointless.
I think I'm in fact quite enjoying the 'nice when it stops' feeling; now I can go back to doing it when I feel like. Not a particularly illuminating conclusion, but there we are!
To say nothing of all those lovely collages you did!
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