My July 1st post from last year found its way into my FB memories today. A piece of writing I think I may always count as one of my best, I was struck again by its beauty and depth. I'd had an invitation to preach in Washington and stayed at the family home the following week while the rest of my family was traveling. It was an amazing opportunity to spread out in the home that embraced five generations of my matrilineal family. A beautiful space in which to reflect and to write.
A note at the bottom of my writing series usually says something about what I am doing and why I am doing it. Perhaps what I hope will come out of it. Sometimes I don't know what it is, but I'd like to discover something. Last year's was this --
The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created as a container for harnessing three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.
I had a funny feeling as I read this theme description at the bottom of that beautiful piece of writing. A note in my morning journal said it well, "The Summer of Self-Love. I think I like that theme better than the Great Summer Writing Retreat of 2019. But we'll see. I need to ponder the dinner party unfulfilled promise to myself."
I had so many big goals last summer, as I do this summer, and I kept them all. It was this little goal, really a promise to myself, that stymied me. The truth is, I was trying to get to something big and seemingly insurmountable by dressing it up as a casual little thing. I'd tried to fool my defenses. I'm laughing at myself now for my naive folly. My defenses can be formidable.
There is an uncomfortable relationship between me and my belongings following divorce. If you were to look at my apartment, you might see a woman who is half in and half out of one life or the other. This is something I need to address, but so far the solution has eluded me. I thought by setting a goal to have a dinner party at the end of 100 days of focusing on self-love, I just might be able to finally do it. I thought the same thing four years ago when I decided to move to a smaller apartment. Surely that would force me to act.
The truth is that we cannot force ourselves to act. I haven't yet figured out the motivation that will work for me but I am living with awareness and have my eyes open around this. It may just be that one day something will slip into place and I'll take a few hours and then wonder what all the angst was about. But for now, I'm living in the chaos of bins and boxes and piles of paper. I've noticed a few cracks in my fortifications lately, so it could be the walls may come tumbling down soon. Or the repair crews of my psyche might just slap something over those cracks to hold things in place for a little while longer.
A late note - after I let this piece of writing settle for a few hours before polishing it, I noticed something interesting. I found myself wanting to flesh out the action I was hoping to force. I began to write the following sentence. "Surely that would force me to act, to get rid of..." There it is. I'm not sure I'm seeing how to finish this sentence, and that just may be the block here. So, never mind what I need to do in the house, how I finish a sentence may direct what I'm able, or not able, to do next.
The Great Summer Writing Retreat of 2019 continues. One hundred days of writing unedited ideas and following a prompt to its sometimes illogical conclusion.
Art: Katrina Sesum, "Moonkeeper"
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