Writing Through the Pain

It's 5:44 p.m., Saturday, September 8, 2007. Two months ago, I had made plans to be doing something important now, plans which feel apart dramatically this August on the heels of other plans falling apart dramatically not 48 hours before.

It's not the first time I've had this overwhelming sense that things are not right, that when I was sleeping the universe shifted and so I've awoken to the wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong life. There have been many moments in the past two years where the surreality of my life washes over me in waves of despair. That's when I want to scream "I want my life back!" - but I don't because I know that it won't change a thing.

I should be doing something important now. I want to be doing it with every fibre of my being. But it's not about what I want, is it? It's about what other people want more. It's painful to be an object, not a subject, in your own life.

Wil sha.

Writing Through the Pain

It is a surprising thing to wake up and discover you no longer know how to trust. Which is ironic, really, as I have been told I am too trusting. On the surface, it might look that way, but the past few days can be an illustration of how trust does not work in my life.

Trust mingles with faith, and when I think it's all going to work out - and then THE THING happens to blow it all out of the water - well, my faith is shaken too.

Wil sha.*

*Let there be healing.

Writing Through the Pain

I've been reading Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron this weekend. (I plan to post a review when done.) She talks about writing/creating in the midst of stagnant periods and about locating the writer's craft within the context of "work" instead of seeing it as a mythical/muse inspired event. One quote that has stuck with me so far:

The doing of something productive regardless of the outcome is an act of faith. The doing of a small something when a larger something is too much for us is perhaps especially an act of faith. Faith means going forward by whatever means we can.

That has been especially important for me within the events of the past year. It has only been when I did the "small somethings" that I felt I was able to move forward. And the "small somethings" have, hopefully, been leading me to a place where I am able to take on more of the "larger somethings". Sometimes the "small somethings" appear to have nothing to do with writing or work: walking my recycling to the bin, taking a picture of the cherry blossoms on the tree outside my window, remembering cookies for game nights. But the mindfulness that I am using to change my world is the same mindfulness that I bring to my writing.

Perhaps, as I move forward in acceptance and healing, it will be the same mindfulness I bring to the "larger somethings" and to my life.

(And, amazingly, my shoulder no longer hurts. Perhaps writing through the pain isn't such a bad tool after all.)