I Am Becoming My Own Teacher

I have a creative cycle, and I forget sometimes when I'm in the middle of it. I've been doing these summer writing projects since 2018, and they have a pattern. I haven't completely figured it out yet, but I'm starting to see it. And when I can't see it, something emerges to remind me. 

Today's writing from three years ago came up in my FB memories -

            The Roar of the Blank Page is Deafening

I am reminded by my own writing that there are times when I need to create space for creative work, and that creating space is not the same thing as clearing space. 

All my spaces are cluttered right now. Congested. It makes me feel a little panicky. The wisdom I was able to tap into three years ago gives me a way to navigate the feelings. I'd just finished up some old work and had gone away to begin some new work. I thought that tying up the old work would release something in me to enable the new to flow, but I learned it is not about getting rid of something - it's about giving myself space and spaciousness. My words today are inelegant and halting, but I feel their message in my bones. 

I've been working on a book for the last three months. I'd set out to finish it in six. It's not coming along. And I discern a similar pattern to the one I encountered three years ago. I'm crying for a vision, an epiphany, one in which the heaviness I feel lifts and the stories come freely. 

The stories had been coming. And then a dear friend died. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. I'd made arrangements to see her for the first time since Covid hit and, instead, I went to her funeral that day. The grief has been like a hand closing around my throat. A friend said, "write about the grief." I can't. Not yet. It's too fresh. Unspeakable. Death happens every single day. It's as normal as life is. And, yet, when death comes for one who is beloved, there is nothing that feels normal or reasonable or possible about that death.  

Something eased when I said that. And I'm breathing a little bit easier. Just a little bit.

A Hundred Days of Happiness 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.

Art: The Weight of Thought by Thomas Lerooy.