always fears, you know.

Yesterday, in my empty kitchen, staring at I-don't-remember-what on my computer, I felt it with a rush: something I need to write about. I postponed for a few moments, made an omelette, dusted my bedroom, cleaned the toilet. And it was lost. Even now, more than twenty-four hours later, I can't remember what I was so longing to write about. There was a time I would have mourned such a loss, but not so much these days. I lost hold of an idea, but the brain that thought it up is still in my head. That idea or something like it or something better will come along again. It's much like Annie Dillard says, we shouldn't be afraid to use up good ideas as they come. We don't need to save them up, because more will come.

Stories build empathy and empathy build connection. Do you realize this? Do you know the power of a story? It isn't a luxury.

I have been thinking about stories quite a bit lately, thinking about the ways they weave all through our lives. Not just in a book or on a stage or flashing through a TV screen. But we live our lives as stories, we organize our thoughts and feelings as such, and our very way of thinking is driven by it. Why? I am ticking off books-to-read on the subject, and so longer grows my books-to-read list, as it has been doing since forever.

I am a writer tonight. A few good things have come along to remind me. Good words.

I feel sad sometimes that writing is less the form of common communication that it used to be. It's a sort of default for me, and often so much easier than talking straight from my mouth. I have been known to hang up a phone without saying anything I meant to, followed by an email or letter that says all the rest.

a writer.

I am often giving advice and encouraging people here (and in life). If I believed in a calling, I might say that was mine. Friends have told me that I am like a compass always pointed in the right direction. I've been told that I have my head on straight. When I was a supervisor, my evaluations often told of my calm and confident personality.

I am going to tell you that I offer up advice, I write here and I encourage everyone else because I need to hear it myself. I write here about my method and my commitment because I need to believe it's possible and I need to believe it's real. I need to believe I can do it. One thing I have learned over time is that you should never ever ever question a creative spirit, even a creative urge. Don't ask for motivation and don't ask for a product. Foster it and nurture it and believe in it. And just wait.

I read this post last week and, while I can appreciate the overall idea, I was still horrified by what I read.

If you consistently find ways to avoid writing then perhaps you need to ask yourself if you really want to be a writer. You can’t really call yourself a writer if you don’t actually write, and if you’re not doing it then maybe your heart just isn’t in it. [...] If you’re doing it for fame, or money, then forcing yourself is never going to work. If you’re doing it because you love writing, then you probably don’t need to read this post.

security in the sky.

Yesterday the inside of my head lit up when someone told me that the only real suffering is discontent. And I said to myself, This is how I live my life. I cling to what has been, I try to fight the change, I grasp for what is not here yet. Listen, I do this because I'm a human being. You do it too. We all do it. But the new awareness I've had is that I live my life with fear of suffering. And perhaps that fear is the real suffering.

It makes sense to me. Do you see what I mean?

Let me tell you about security. Here is the honest truth. Over the course of several years, I lost what was once a very devout Christian faith. It was the very core and center of my life. And the years passed and it slipped away from me and suddenly I saw it with new eyes and I let it go. Then, one morning, a sunny summer morning on some wooden steps with a plate of eggs in my lap, I was saying the words: I don't think I believe in God. I can tell you that it was relief and freedom because it was. I can also tell you that it was a new fear and loneliness that I had never known.

be here.

Some while ago I read something, I can't remember where. A post on a blog or maybe an essay. It was about fear and this reassurance: Anything could happen, but it usually doesn't. I've been letting my brain chew on this thought for a few weeks now.

I carry a lot of fear around with me. I don't usually acknowledge it to myself, or even anyone else. I am afraid of losing things and people that I love, afraid of people dying or abandoning me, afraid of them abandoning themselves, afraid of change and the unknown and feeling out of control. Usually my fear is something I push back when it surfaces. But lately it has been fighting it's way through, sharp pricks and wet eyes. I am forced to confront it every day and I am confronting it now head on. I am tired of living with the constant expectation that something evil is just around the corner.

Over the weekend, I read a piece in the latest issue of Poets & Writers that was about writing as healing and discovery in the face of a spouse's death. I read the first sentence, "On the night my husband died..." and immediately the black hole opened up in the pit of my stomach. Death, there it is, looming over me and everyone else I love.

risks.

I wear neutral colors. I choose my words carefully. I'm a lover, not a hater. I'm soft-spoken. I want to keep the peace. I don't like much attention.

But when I get down to business, the things that I need to write and say are difficult. They're controversial, maybe even offensive. They might hurt people that I love.

That's the battle I've been fighting on a daily basis and right now, right here. I'm only dusting off the iceberg - I haven't even begun to chip away at it. What's the answer? I need to write, I know that I need to write. Something in my gut tells me that my writing will never be what I want until I can confront the demons and write the hardest things. The fear, instinct, knowledge, emotion - I'm left nearly paralyzed.

I had a conversation yesterday about the challenges as an artist to separate yourself from your work. It is still nearly impossible for me. The words are an extension of self. They are intensely personal. I don't know how to make the divide.

the real doubt.

I’m bad at drafts. I mean, I can edit. I can clean up sentences, choose new words, trim extra commas. But real drafts, the kind where you cut everything up, tear it into pieces and then put it back together again -- I have a hard time with that. Once the structure is on paper, I get attached to it. It feels familiar and I don’t want to let it go.

I have been putting off editing a piece I started over a month ago. I know it needs some mashing up and rearranging and I can’t bring myself to do it. The result is that I freeze up, change a few words, write very little, nothing new.

Here’s what I need someone to write about, for my sake: the real doubt, the kind that cripples you and fires around in your head with whips and electric fences. I am typing word after word, typing them in a row, in a line, line after line. They’re weak, contrived, I don’t like them, to be more precise I hate them. I am staring at the screen and I know: I can never be a writer. The moment the pressure is on, there are no words. I mean, listen to these sentences I’m writing. They’re pathetic. No one wants to read this. I know it’s a mistake to give voice and free reign to that critic in my head. But I have to write about it so that maybe someone else can read this and know that sometimes when you write, you hate yourself for writing.

prison dreams.

I have a problem writing anything with teeth in it. I tend to be abstract, loose, warm. There isn't a lot you can hold on to: concrete images, descriptions, words that have an edge to them. I think this is a reflection of the way my brain works. I am very easily lost in my own mind and find meaning in ideas more than physical things. But you can only read that sort of writing for so long.

So that is the way I write. I'm aware of it and I'm always telling myself to reign it in, to bring more details and images and specifics into what I'm saying. But when I let it rip, without any censoring, it comes out introspective and mushy. This is frustrating; I know there is more to what I'm saying, but I can't capture it.

Over the past few months, I've had several episodes of what I've been told are anxiety dreams. Several nights in a row I'll have dreams that leave me unsettled. They aren't nightmares exactly, but they're close. Who knows what combination of life factors induce these anxiety dreams (I can take a guess) but this week, I've had another stretch of them. My dream two nights ago: I dreamt that I was wrongly convicted of a crime and was sent to prison.

I've always had a strange fascination with dream symbols. I think it's so interesting that there are dream symbols that are universal, across cultures, across time. For example: dreaming that your teeth fall out. There's no reason for me to have that concept in my consciousness, but one very specific time, when I felt overwhelmed by life, I dreamt that all my teeth fell out. I know other people who have had the same dream under similar circumstances. What causes humans to have universally understood dreams?

So I looked up prison dreams.

Imprisonment To dream that you are imprisoned suggests that you are feeling trapped or unable to move beyond a certain point.

Prison To dream that you are in prison indicates that you are being censored in some area of your life. You feel that your creativity is being limited and that you are not allowed to express yourself.

Take it or leave it.

Lately I've been trying to make use of a few writing exercises to help me stay open to stronger images and details. One of my favorites right now comes from Natalie Goldberg (Wild Mind, pp167-168).

Bite into a piece of celery. Write down a strong word. Not like tasty, salty, good. Sit still and wait for a concrete word to come: tiger, muscle, glass. The strong word does not have to be logical. It should not be an ordinary, conditioned response. [...] Be patient. You don't immediately or always hit home with terrific, strong concrete words. Often it takes a little warm-up time to feel you blasted through to something alive and on the mark. Jump in.

Here's how I do it: I take a look around and make a list of words. For each word, I write down several strong word associations. When something hits the mark, I write a sentence using that comparison.

Words: notebook, peanut butter, brick wall, fan.

notebook - concrete
notebook - sand
notebook - elephant
notebook - rubber spatula
peanut butter - lava
peanut butter - ocean
peanut butter - bowling ball
peanut butter - razor
brick wall - raincoat
brick wall - bullet
brick wall - tissue
brick wall - cedar
fan - cloud
fan - silk
fan - crunch
fan - antelope

My pen sunk into the notebook's wet concrete.
The brick wall was worn with age like a crumpled tissue.
The fan's silky blades whirred through the thick heat.

You get the idea. It's ok if it's weird or doesn't make sense. Even if you write something cliche or some of your strong words aren't all that strong. The point (for me) is to practice opening my mind to new images and details. It's hard to look at an object, think about it, taste it, and then find an association that isn't a conditioned response. That's good. Test your limits.