Sep 17, 2015 Writing 101

Dear World,

I feel like a child right now, a child wanting approval, a child unsure of herself and her place in this strange reality, having just left behind seventeen years of teaching, completely voluntarily.

Should I carry on doing what I set out to do — which is, to write?

As someone who likes to write, but is no longer as compulsive about it as I used to be as a teenager and young adult, do I want to really spin out worlds, fantasies, poems?  Isn’t this letter itself a self-contradictory thing for one who wishes to be silent?  The world is cluttered up with words right now.  I’m not helping.  Silence seems to be a lovely, elusive Holy Grail.

Should I bother to reach out to others, or retire into my shell, and scribble things in a notebook, and not dream of publishing a novel, or even a chapbook of poetry?  Does anyone really like what I do?  And should it matter?  I scold myself for wanting this approval, but then I ask myself, “Isn’t writing about communicating?”  And so on, and so forth, until I throw up my hands, and … write!

Do I have it in me to do more than just be a mother, wife, musician, and unpublished writer?  (Yes, I know the answer lies within me, but I ask the question, nonetheless).  Do I want to do more?

And why does everything hurt me nowadays — both physically and emotionally?  When I was younger, I was able to shake off things easily.  Now, that I am older, I feel the weight of the world settling on me, and only the walks that I take with my dog help me shake of existential pain.  Music helps always.  Being with my little family helps.

What do you want from me, World?

I want to do so much, and have so little energy!  My husband says it’s because I lost seventeen years of sleep, and this deprivation has broken me.  He encourages me to catch up on lost sleep.  I haven’t yet caught up, but I’m so grateful to him!  Habits take a long time to undo, and my habit of sleeping very, very late is slowly killing me, I think, because when I awake in the morning (not as early as I used to, true, but after fewer hours of sleep than I’d like to have had), I feel angry at having to face you, O World.  I feel upset by world news, and helpless because I cannot really do anything.  You, O World, are full of confusion and angst.  I’ve had enough of all you.  I want to leave you — not to die, just to leave you, perhaps go into deep sleep for a while, and then, head out into the cold clarity of outer space, and just keep walking out into the heart of the universe.

Because you, O World, can be a toxic place.  I cannot bear to hear about child slavery, about women being molested, about people killing each other in more and more cruel and inventive ways, about politicians who create so much hatred, about Climate Change, about forests being raped and pillaged, about oceans dying, and animals vanishing fast into extinction.  That I am fortunate in my family and current life does not make me immune to the pain of others.  I feel each person’s pain as if it were my own, and this is killing me.  I need to find some distance, some detachment (which comes and goes).

Yes, O World, I know you can be beautiful.  I strive to see it every day.  I take walks, and marvel at beauty, everyday beauty.  I hear birds still where I live, and gaze my fill at brightly blooming flowers and rich, green trees fast heading into the reds and golds of impending autumn, and rest my eyes on cool ponds, and stare at the evening sky or night sky.  You are filled with kindness in little pockets of the earth, and creative souls who do their best to hold the horrors at bay.  I seek them out.  And I can only try and air out, and sweep out my corner.  And I can seek and find things of beauty around me.  I do do that, but I’m exhausted, wiped out.

Am I depressed?  I don’t think so.  Just tired.

Sleep will help me.  I know it.  Meditating every day (like I did for a little while, and dropped off recently, and will start up again, after I write this) will definitely help.  Reading good things will help.  Taking very long walks do help.  Listening to music and looking at art remind me of how great humans can be.  Reading about good and great people inspires me.

However, by good and great, I mean normal people who do good and great things, and don’t put on the robes of spiritual leaders.  I reject religion, and religious leaders.  I reject the mumbo-jumbo of the well-known spiritual types who are simply parroting the wisdom of others.  They look too rich and comfortable for me to be convinced.  I suspect them deeply, and I sense exploitativeness in all of them, even though many of them do no harm.

If we cannot find our own Guru and our own enlightenment within ourselves, how will we find them outside ourselves?

But I am sad right now, O World.  And tears come unbidden to me.  My sense of humor, which was always on the surface, has retreated.  This is temporary, I know.

Hey, I know what!  I’ll pull out my entire collection of P.G. Wodehouse, and read all those books.  He ALWAYS made me laugh out loud.  And I’ll read Donald E. Westlake.  He is the American P.G. Wodehouse.  Monty Python will do the trick.  Oh, and Galaxy Quest — which I’ve watched several times over the past several years.  That will help.

And I’ll stop feeling foolishly sad.

Thanks, O World, for reading.

Trying-to-cheer-myself-uply,

~Dreamer of Dreams

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#writing 101