The last few days I’ve been stopping to catch my inner monologue and replace it with something less driven, more compassionate, more useful, more fun. What a joy! And why not? Why does the other monologue feel “realistic”, like I somehow have a responsibility to run that tape of wearying, demanding voices?
This afternoon, having cooked dinner and made pudding for my brother & his family while they drive up from Inverness, I sat on the couch. I lay down and napped for a while. I straightened up and read for a bit. Then”¦ I stopped. And looked.
It felt like waking up a second time. I looked at the plant winding its way up in the corner of the living room””three charmed, skinny wooden snakes with leafy headdresses, and I sunk even deeper into the moment.
This is the other thing I’m remembering in these moments of moments: the feeling of living twice by observing things through the filter of How would I write that?
As I transfer all my notes from last year (in my Gregg shorthand of the time””ack!), typing them out onto 3×5 cards, I look at the task ahead in writing this novel and I know that what I need to succeed at this again (can I say that?) is interiority. I want my inner life back. My attention. My original “Wild Mind”, as Natalie Goldberg calls it””she whose book of the same name first got me started on this writing path.
In that place, writing becomes something completely different. A line from Rumi comes to mind””which I think Natalie quotes in the book:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
It feels like a religious calling, a coming back to faith, because writing is the best thing I’ve found for helping me fully experience this world and feel like I’m engaged in a practice that takes me closer to whatever it’s about.