I've been wanting to create a structure for myself to do some writing for quite a while. So I'd go out and look at different author blogs, and find myself envious about the give and take that they represented. I'm a former "unpopular kid," and there are layers way down there (hello!) that are unhappy or determined to see slights in every happenstance. This isn't the majority opinion of my inner committee, but the negative pull on things can create such wind resistance that I don't leap out and try something new.
This particular blog was a moment's impulse. I have another one, too, which is feeling too - oh, tender - to make public. In the title of this blog, I mean no irreverence - it's really about my own ducking and dodging from letting my own insights and best mind guide me. And also, I suppose, a recognition that my life is at least in part a comedy channel and I might as well get a laugh or two out of it.
As I was thinking about the experience of writing, I recognized that at its best, it's an expression of mindfulness. When I'm working at being as clear and honest as possible, just staying connected to the thought, to the impulse behind the thought, I'm not in my usual fog of endless rehearsal and instant replay. So it's a good thing to be doing, wherever it takes me.
Walking the Edge of A Pond
14 hours ago
2 comments:
Hi Mary Ellen!
I think this (what you say) is the nearly universal condition. Only nearly because many folks are not very reflective.
I always think of the last lines of Paradise Lost, when we get kicked out, know how badly we've fucked up, and have to live with that searing knowledge for our remaining years. Consummate crummy feeling.
The way out (or back in, in the case of Eden) is through disclosure (truth), engagement with others (service), and forgiveness (humor). Each of which, when we are feeling bleak, seem very alien to us. But all of which we are all pretty good at when we are in a state of grace, which I think is Lamott's point.
See Lamott!
http://mfinley.com/experts/lamott.htm
For what it's worth, your note to us the other day about life being beautiful and challenging and wonderful, really helped me get off square one that day. So when we are feeling inconsequential, we are forgetting that others love us and are connected to us by bands of indestructible steel.
"Anyone up there" winds up being a rhetorical question, cuz you know he ain't going to say, "Present." That wouldn't do at all. But we are over here, and there, laterally from you, And that is maybe the best place to go looking.
looking forward to your thoughts, and your always fine writing.
Love, Mike
Thanks, dear friend.
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