While thousands of writers are madly dashing off a first
draft in NaNoWriMo this month, I have been actively not writing. I mean, it’s
an actual activity, this not-writing. It takes thought and discipline because the
routine of writing for hours everyday is a hard one to break.
Why am I ‘not-writing’? Because after twelve years, it was
starting to feel like a rote process. I wrote because…well, that’s
what I did. You have to do something, right? I’ve
told myself for years that it’s a good thing to do, that it’s important for me
to be doing it and that, in and of itself, it has value. But I think, every so
often, we need to step back and look for some kind of proof for what we have
allowed ourselves to believe.
Or maybe I’m just having a mini crisis of faith.
When you first start writing, you work hard at establishing
it as a pattern in your life—you have to carve out space and let go of the
myriad of other things that gobble up your time. It’s essential. And then you
have to focus, give yourself over to the process. Also essential. All of this
single-mindedness is a good thing, but it can make you a bit myopic and because
of that, I think you also have to occasionally step back and consciously
consider what you’re doing, how you’re spending your extremely precious time
and ask yourself if this is what you’re suppose to be doing—what you want to be
doing. You have to ask yourself “why?” The question of value always looms large
in my heart and soul. Which is why I think it’s so important to make sure
whatever you’re doing, you do it consciously.
So I’ve made the conscious decision to step back and look
around me for a while. To put myself more physically in the world. Plus, after
spending the majority of time in my head, pounding virtual words into my
keyboard that then vanished into my laptop, I’ve felt the need to make
something solid, something physical, with my hands. I’m just not yet sure what
that solid something will be…
And so in the past few weeks, I’ve been going to galleries
and museums, I’ve been thumbing through some old sketchbooks, I’ve pulled out
my bag of wool fleece and felting needles, I’ve sorted through a closet full of
half finished craft projects. I’ve also spent a good deal of time talking to
artist friends, asking why they make art. And I’ve been catching up with some other
old friends that remind me of where I’ve been and the parts of me that go
beyond ‘writer’.
It’s funny how these ‘why’ questions seem to always go
deeper and deeper and turn out to be part of this search for the meaning of
life.
The other thing I’ve been doing is reading what other writers
have to say about writing and about living and have come to realize how much my
life has been guided by writers. I picked up Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim At Tinker
Creek—a book that resonated so strongly for me in my twenties. Now that I’m a
unapologetic urbanite, this book doesn’t touch me in quite the same way as it
did when I was living in a tiny cabin on an island in the Puget Sound, but what
it has done is lead me to some of her later words that, when I read them a few
weeks ago, shot through me like an electrical charge—they rang so true:
“We are here
to witness the creation and abet it. We are here to notice each thing so each
thing gets noticed. Together we notice not only each mountain shadow and each
stone on the beach but, especially, we notice the beautiful faces and complex
natures of each other. We are here to bring to consciousness the beauty and power
that are around us and to praise the people who are here with us. We witness
our generation and our times. We watch the weather. Otherwise, creation would
be playing to an empty house.
According to
the second law of thermodynamics, things fall apart. Structures disintegrate.
Buckminster Fuller hinted at a reason we are here: By creating things, by
thinking up new combinations, we counteract this flow of entropy. We make new
structures, new wholeness, so the universe comes out even. A shepherd on a hilltop
who looks at a mess of stars and thinks, ‘There’s a hunter, a plow, a fish’ is
making mental connections that have as much real force in the universe as the
very fires in those stars themselves.”
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
We are here
to notice each thing so each thing gets noticed…Otherwise, creation would be
playing to an empty house…We create things—buildings, gardens, music, art,
stories—to counteract the flow of entropy. Not only that, but also, perhaps, we
create things as a physical act of bearing witness and of giving praise. Maybe
each act of creating something could be seen as a kind of prayer, a form of
saying grace.
This week of Thanksgiving, I give thanks for all the many,
many blessings in my life. My family. My friends. The animals who make me more
human. This jewel of a city on the Bay. And for all of the makers, all of the
creators making things as a way of noticing, as a way of praising and to
counteract the flow of entropy. And to
all of the writers who have and continue to guide me with their words. Without
them, I would be truly lost.
Take Good Care,
Sharry
