Day 6: I've not been writing...
I'm a writer who has not been writing (up to this week). For months now, except for one burst back in February when the emotional overflow was so huge that a weekend was swamped with words. Or gifted with words. I do love words, after all, as anyone around me for long will attest. But I've not been writing in these last months...even years, actually.
CrossFit and the rosary are two reasons, I suppose. Writing used to be my only outlet for energetic overwhelm. Today, most days of the week, I'm on my way to the "box" (what CrossFit gyms are called), rosary in hand as I drive. I sit with five mysteries of faith a day as I drive, being-with, letting them shape my awareness without thinking too much about them. Being-in them is sufficient. The CrossFit daily workouts, WODs, help me warm up (so necessary for a middle-aged woman!), strength-train, and challenge myself in rhythms of cardio and strength. Rarely do I have energy overwhelms that used to push me into writing. I'm a much gentler soul of equanimity when I've been able to sit with my beads, and do my CrossFit bit in the mornings. Things that would irk or anger seem to roll off my back more easily, which is a good thing in the world today.
Another reason is that I'm no longer leading or directly participating in women's writing circles, which used to hold a gentle goad "to have written for circle" each week. This morning, sitting with a cup of coffee on the shore of Lake Erie, on some days "away" with Brian, I can feel the gentle invitation that this project is for me to dip my toe back into a shallow lake of daily writing. I like it. It eases the grief I know I feel about letting more of this women's-writing work go. Or releasing it in its current form so it can become what it already is.
I seem to be gently returning to a wisdom and practice of writing I used to know...
...but haven't felt in my bones in quite some time. Writing that invites a pause into this moment, then this one, then this moment...nothing more, nothing less. I recognize it but my passion for community grew bigger than this holy ordinary. Writing-in-community led me into some of the most abundant, intimate, formative years I've ever known, 2012 and forward. I'm incredibly thankful for all that writing offered...AND...I'm newly aware how my soul's energies so easily moved to the care of women (and others) through writing. As I do, I lost the sense of my own creative voice for me.
Shhh....she may be peeking around the corner here. Let's not startle the wildlife.