A Journal entry – January 2018 – “Why is writing so difficult?”

Writing without stopping. As fast as I can. I don’t know quite what it will be, I never do. It’s unnerving, every day to face this question of what I will write. I agonize all day long, wandering and wondering… why do I avoid it? What am I afraid will come out?

I just hold my breath until I can’t anymore, holding and holding, over and over again. Why can’t I just breathe in and out, write and rest, write and rest?

Sleep, think, write, walk, run, breathe, hold, release, hold, release. Catch, find, keep, release. I have the tension wrong, the purpose is off, the rhythm is bad. It’s unsustainable, ridiculous, holding and holding, fainting for lack of oxygen. Holding, agonizing, wringing my hands, avoiding the chair, looking at anything but the page.

For whatever reason my excuse is that I don’’t know what I will write, or what I need to work on. When the question is rather something that should be asked after the fact: What is this that I have written? What need is next? Not, what should I write? I’ve tried, its always doomed from the beginning. It’s like asking, what shall I do with this life? All the while forgetting Life is happening, in motion, some of it gone.

Hold tight but not too tight, you’ll hurt something, break apart when you should have been bent, or shatter when you were meant to conform. Breaking is hard, too much for the body. It must bend and twist and move, and glide and sing. Pull and push, invite and give. Not break, and hold and disappear. It is a conundrum. A truth. To work the movement. To bend the will, to listen to the voice, to say yes when all is screaming no.

The no is valid, it is the backdrop. It is the blank slate that every yes is put upon. It holds the tension, the edges, the lines, the glimmer. Without it the yes would have no texture, no feel or look. It would never be right without it’s opposing wrong, it’s blank space, with unending light. Light with no dark, dark with no light. Fall without summer.

To be here, to write, to think, to put it all down. Ten, nine, eight, seven…slipping into the hole of Alice in Wonderland, to find what needs to be found. You do not ask, why, what or how. Just do it: become, transform, right foot, left foot. Around and around. Step, flick, swish.

Journal entry. Date: January 2018