small life.

It’s lovely when the itch to write comes back to me. I just need to dust it off and shake it out and it finally takes me away. It’s worth reminding oneself that inspiration can only carry you off if you show up.

I have been successful at freewriting all days but one this week. Last night, I did absolutely everything else on my to do list first. I even added more things to my to do list, and did those as well. It was approaching 10:30pm and I was thinking about what book I wanted to read and how cozy my bed was looking and by some other power, I managed to get my notebook in my hand, set a timer for 10 minutes, and sit myself on the couch to write. I began by writing I don’t want to write but still...I’m showing up. My calendar on the wall is looking very happy with a few big black Xs on it.

Many years ago, a friend introduced me to Wendell Berry’s Jayber Crow and my life was changed. It opened my eyes to myself and to human truths I had found no words for, which I believe to be the greatest feats of good art. I will never, never forget those moments, curled up in the Wellfleet winter, reading that book for the first time.

Today I uncovered this wonderful piece about Mr. Berry’s annual birding walk (I was pointed there by this excellent blog). The author, Erik Reece, kindly offered these words:

In tumultuous and uncertain times, it is worth being reminded that these fine things—beauty, faith, gratitude—still lurk eternally beneath history’s dark veneer, and that an artist working alone in a room beside a river may catch a glimpse of them and render them into a lyric poem, a short story, or an essay. 

He was also so good as to mention Wendell’s thoughts on place:

"I began to see, however dimly, that one of my ambitions, perhaps my governing ambition, was to belong fully to this place, to belong as the thrushes and the herons and the muskrats belonged, to be altogether at home here…. It is a spiritual ambition, like goodness. The wild creatures belong to the place by nature, but as a man I can belong to it only by understanding and by virtue."

This is important talk. I must remember these things. Later in the piece, he notes another something Wendell has said:

"A man cannot despair,” he once wrote, “if he can imagine a better life, and if he can enact something of its possibility."

Wendell Berry’s words always instill peace. Somehow he always loosens whatever anxiety I might feel and then nudges me in the right direction. So much is explained by my own, deep and spiritual need to belong to a place. So much can be gained by enacting the possibilities of a better life.

I have always been the sort of person who loves a small, quiet life. I don’t crave attention or multitudes of people or fame or importance or grand deeds. I crave a safe place that is my own. I crave those few people who are willing to understand me and who will empower me to be my best self. I crave good food and creative outlets and time to sit quietly and think. As I grow older, I am beginning to understand how very big that small, quiet life can be. It can be a revolution, really.

This weekend, I have small plans. I’m going to inventory my wardrobe. I’m going to hopefully begin creating an inspiration space. I'm going to pull off a short run and hope my knee is feeling a bit better. What will you be doing?

It feels good to be back.
It feels good to tackle my creative goals.
I am grateful.