Buried Treasure

On this beautiful sunny midwest morning (hey, do I sound like I’m from California??), I had the joy of speaking about therapeutic writing to a group of folks at Generations of Hope, a very cool multi-generational community.  At Generations of Hope,”children adopted from foster care find permanent and loving homes, as well as grandparents, playmates and an entire neighborhood designed to help them grow up in a secure and nurturing environment.”  This morning at Hope Meadows, we talked about writing, about how it needs compassion about self-permission in order to thrive.  Going through the world with an open and watchful heart really helps too.  And then they asked me the question everyone asks about ongoing writing which is, “How do I find time to do it?”  Here is the secret to answering this question…

The secret is that this is almost never a question about time; it is a question about fear.  When we ask how do I find time to write, what we are really asking is, “How can I start doing something that I think I’d like to do, but I’m terrified that I will be incredibly horrible at?”  And because we tend to associate creative acts with exceptional skill and self-confidence, we are ALSO asking, “Why on earth would anyone want to read what I write, or hear what I have to say?” 

It’s not about time.  It’s about letting fear hold love hostage.  So the poems written by the woman who just had a stroke and lost her adult granddaughter stay hidden in her desk.  Or the memoir of the man who wants to make up for the fact that he didn’t listen to his own grandfather’s life story before he died may remain unwritten, unshared with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Buried treasure.

Inspired by my visit this morning, I have challenge for you.  It’s to do this very short writing activity, the one with which we started the morning’s group:  write a single descriptive sentence of anything that you noticed today.  One sentence.  About anything.  Then send it in as a reply to this post.  This is not about skill; it’s about paying attention.  Or of saying, in a small, self-loving way, “I am here.”  I once heard Carrie Newcomer say that being a writer is like making a contract with the universe:  “I will be here.  And I will pay attention.”

I’m looking forward to your replies!  Especially those of you who are already deciding that you don’t have anything to say, or you’ll sound stupid, or some other self-defeating thought.  I will love you for it, and I’ll do that for as long as it takes for you to love yourself for it, or for any other creative act that you are working on.  I promise.

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Mary Oliver