I was sitting at my desk about half an hour ago, when I heard something outside. I opened the blinds and peered out, and a decent rain was falling out of the sky. Within a couple minutes it built into a thunderous crescendo, pummeling the roof above, like a hundred drummers beating on tautly stretched hides.
It was mesmerizing.
The rain has passed, and now there are patches of blue sky outside. And while we know the rain will come again, maybe as soon as this afternoon, for now the air is crisp and clean, and the world feels new again.
Often when I’m writing, the weight of that world presses in on me, all the old baggage of politics and job worries and climate change and social media and age and and and and…
…and I just want to scream. It’s all I can do to try to focus on the work of my writing for more than a few moments at a time.
A dear friend recently forwarded to me a column from author Nancy Reddy’s newsletter. This part stuck out for me:
Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland (now out in paperback!) that just spoke directly to my heart at the time. In this season following the flurry of Good Mother Mythpublication, it’s been popping back into my head, and I wanted to share it with you all again:
The inutterable magic of keeping one’s head down and listening only to the work.
Somehow that sliver of a sentence just crystallized something in me: there’s the work, then there’s not-the-work.
Staring out at the rain this morning, I realized I need an internal rainstorm, some way of washing away all the dirt and muck and grime, and replacing it with that feeling of the fresh, the new, the possible. I want to remember what writing was like when I was young and consumed with an idea that itched and burned inside to force its way out through my fingers and onto the written page.
I have to remember that there’s the work, and the not-work, and find some way to leave the latter behind, like I used to when I would allow myself to become lost in another word.
Sometimes we need to identify the problem first, to name it before we can set about solving it. For me, the problem is simple. It’s become harder and harder to focus on the work, and easier to let the not-work in.
The answer? Not so easy.
Maybe it’s taking a literal shower, a washing clean of my body before sitting down to write while imagining the detritus of the world being washed away soon.
Maybe it means turning myself over to simple meditation, centering myself and focusing on what I’m about to write, and letting go of all the rest.
Maybe I need to go back to using my old laptop to write, wiping it clean of all the worldly distractions, and taking it to a place free of those associations and temptations.
Perhaps all three?
Whatever the answer is, I need to return to what writing was to me when I was younger. To find a way to really focus on the work, to let the rain wash me clean, and to give myself wholly to it.
A way to let the waters of creativity flow.
When I find it, I’ll let you know.
To my writer friends… what’s your means of setting your creativity free from all the weight and insanity of the world?