The fella’s having a very long lie-in, so I’ve spent the whole morning in a low-slung, soft, bouncy Ikea chair in one of the spare rooms with a big beige duvet over my legs up on a matching chair, reading. Just reading.
Delicious.
I stopped to ponder something my coach asked me in our second-last session, a question so big I put it aside and didn’t get around to it. I put down my book and looked at the printed out e-mail in which she posed it to me: “Why are you doing this? Why are you telling this story? Why are you creating? What is its meaning in your life? How do you value it?”
I sat for a moment and the answer floated up from inside me, the simplest truth that has been with me my whole life:
When I write, I am free.
When I create, I am most myself.
As an adult, living in a world of money and power and responsibilities, it’s no wonder I keep returning to these same activities that I loved as a child, because this need has never changed.
I get upset at the things about this world that are stupid and unjust — celebrity, constant war, the skewing of reward toward corporate good rather than what’s good for humans and nature — but in moments of noticing, being, and creating, I literally become the author of my experience and have one small little corner in which I can add something I wish to see.
The Scottish election came and went, and we’ll see what happens. I’m happy to return to my small corner and forget about all that, because it’s way over there and I know that’s not where my talents lie. They’re right here. And this is where I’m free.
