On writing

There are so many things I want to write about: memories (my own) and memory (good vs bad, real vs imagined); loss and grief; space and time and their elasticity (is it like the plasticity of the brain? is that why we speak of time as healing or of the universe as expanding?); friends, family, the people in my life (who are the real characters and what do I learn from them?).

I could also write about faith and belief, my own and how it mixes with those (or lack thereof) in people close to me. Water, as a theme, and light. Mountains and sea, as place. Flight, departure and arrival. Death and dying: the act of, the rituals for, the fear, the beauty, the finality, the continuity. The sense of drowning -- the pull of weightlessness against the push of gravity -- when I feel consumed by sadness. How I cannot bear emotion within song and music. The internal soaring when I experience joy.

I think of the writers I admire most:  Isabel Allende, Timothy Findley, Salman Rushdie, Alice Munro, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Michael Ondaatje, Maya Angelou…  At a writing course I took I was told to imitate the writers I admire. Imitate them? Really? The short lines, consisting of a single word sometimes, of Findley. The fogginess of Ondaatje. The poetry of Angelou. The sense of place of Munro and the shock of Atwood. They write about the personal: real, or imagined.

A moment of self-doubt. Random self-doubt. Never ending loops of self-doubt: What could I possibly write that has not been written before? What could I possibly say that has not been said before?  

It’s hard to write. It's harder not to. 

Sometimes I have very little energy, and my brain feels numb. Nevertheless, I try to push on. Quantity, not quality, the pros say -- just get the words out and onto a page. Listen to the words, and hear them whisper. Brush them away if they are bad or don’t make sense. Better yet, invite them in to visit for awhile. I am learning the value of just writing: to clear the cobwebs, to open up the mind, to loosen the senses, to begin to see or perceive things differently. I am staying open to possibility and inspiration. Or insanity. Yes, I am open to insanity, and the inspiration that may lie within that.