Creating Mental Space


Ah, the dreaded first blog. No matter how many journal entries I’ve written or stories I’ve told in my nearly 40 years, there’s something daunting about that first foray into the public journaling arena, where once private thoughts are now on display. I won’t lie; I’ve spent some time staring at the blank page today, thinking that maybe I’d forgotten how to write entirely.

I’m happy to report that it isn’t the case. However, I find that my avenue to the page has changed from that which I had anticipated. I thought that today I would write about writing—about what I love about it and why it’s important to me. I thought that maybe I would share the journey that’s carried me from piles of notebooks, stacked in closets, full of the inner workings of my mind, to this page, here . . . today, where I’m writing for anyone to see.

But, I don’t think I’m going to write about writing.

Instead, I want to write about meditating. Now, if you’re thinking that this is going to be a sermon, I promise you, it’s not. I may be a preacher’s kid, but I don’t swing that way. It doesn’t matter to me what gets you to where you’re going; you certainly don’t have to go my way. It’s just that I realized what was standing in my way today. Trying to write about writing on my first day out was like calling my own personal critic on the phone and asking for her thoughts on the matter. What I got was that inevitable voice of negativity that says no one will want to read what I write—the one that asks who the hell I think I am, anyway, thinking that my ideas, my words, my art, would be of value to someone else.

So, after some minor internal temper tantrums, I stopped for a moment to meditate. No cushion, no shrine room, nothing fancy (though I have, and use, a cushion and it sits in front of a shrine of sorts). I just meditated where I was, in a chair, on the porch, while listening to the sounds of the world around me.

It didn’t take long for my mind to settle down and for my personal critic to take a hike. (She knows when she’s no longer welcome). Meditation is what has taught me slowly but surely, over time, that I can let the words go. I can drop the storyline and be with my breath and tolerate the shaky, panicky feeling in my chest that tries to send me running for the hills when the writing gets rough. Let the words go? I know, it’s hard to imagine a writer letting go of words, but I know that it’s just temporary. I have confidence that they’ll be waiting for me when I return from my own, self-imposed “time out”, and they might even make more sense after I’ve provided them with some boundaries.

It turns out that, for me, stopping the constant flow of words that echoes off the cavernous walls of my mind, lets me experience what the fresh air feels like flooding my lungs, and what the scent of cedar outside my window does for my peace of mind. It encourages me to notice the sun stretched out across my legs and the comfort of the pillow supporting my back. It allows me to feel planted firmly on the earth.

When I allow myself to notice that what I’ve been doing is “thinking”, not observing anything real (I am not, in fact, an idiot, nor am I the worst writer who ever lived, thank you very much), it creates a space. I recognize that I haven’t been creating or seeing truth, I’ve just been letting my thoughts run roughshod over me. In that space, created by meditation, I can hear the birds singing and children laughing. Cliché? Maybe—but it’s real. What’s more, I can see my characters’ faces and hear what they’ve been trying to tell me over the din of my own internal shouting. In that space, I remember that I am here . . . now, everything else is just chatter.

It’s ironic to me that, when I started out writing this morning, all I could think of was the public nature of this, the potential for rejection or criticism. But now, in the space I’ve created, I remember that it’s never been about that. Do I want to publish? Of course I do. Do I hope that one day my characters and my stories will live in the hearts of others, that children, specifically, will take delight in them? Yes. I’m a writer—it’s what we long for. But because of stopping to breathe, to be here with myself in the midst of my own little panic attack, I remember that it’s really just about finding my way into the fresh air and the sun. It’s about giving voice to the parts of myself that don’t speak as loudly or take up as much space. It’s about giving them a place to roam and have adventures, to talk to me and with each other, to learn about one another and themselves—no bullies keeping them down.

Writing, for me, is creating a world for myself in which I’m free to play and fight, climb and fall, succeed and fail, unhindered by that well-meaning, over-protective parent voice that really just wants to keep me from getting hurt.

Huh . . . I guess I ended up circling around to writing about writing after all. Thanks for sticking with me until I figured that out.