Just Live and See What Happens

It's strange to write in a new place.

At the old place I wrote in a room dominated by windows that looked out to the east and to the south. I could see the sun rise. I could see the river. I could see the wide-open sky and canopy of trees. Eagles and great blue heron and hawks flew across my field of vision. Here, I'm on the first floor at ground level. My garden is outside my window, the only window in the space. It is practically floor-to-ceiling and faces west and north. I haven't pulled out my compass yet, from whichever box it remains hidden, but I would bet I'm sitting pretty much on the exact northwest line. 

Wherever there's a window in the house, it faces only one direction. And it's all the same direction.

I lived in the old place for nine years. I knew its habits and patterns. This is new. It feels strange, unfamiliar. And even though I chose it and chose to move, it's still weird. It's fine. But different, and different can be unsettling.

When I sat down at my kitchen table in the old place with paper and pen or my laptop, I knew it was time to write. It came easily. Now I sit down at a TV table in my living room filled with boxes instead of furniture and wonder what I'm doing. 

Oh, yes, I've sat down to write. 

I don't think. I begin to type. Or to scratch the pen across the page. It's the old discipline of write until you begin to write. Sometimes writing, "I don't know what to write," until the shift happens and the writing begins. This is a practice from writing teachers I've talked about before. 

Sometimes there will be a whole page of 

I don't know what to write.

Sometimes I'll just begin with what I'm thinking about and the writing will emerge out of that. The only time wasted is time I'm not writing.

It might be the same way of things when you move into a new place and aren't sure how to live there. Just live and see what happens. I think it might be that way with any new situation. 

Just live, and see what happens.

Tomorrow Has Become Yesterday is a daily writing practice that opens a landscape of discovery into my own human experience. 

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.