note to self

in

Trying to keep this bit – for my money, the finest bit of wisdom in a book full of it – at the forefront as I navigate my own resoundingly unproductive (and maddening) creative period:

"The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck, when the truth is that you're empty... The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given – that you are not in a productive creative period – you free yourself to begin filling up again."

being my anything written

in

The empty continues and I've returned to this, especially today:

"The word block suggests that you are constipated or stuck when the truth is that you're empty... (but) if you accept the reality that you have been given – that you are not in a productive creative period – you free yourself to begin filling up again."

Lamott then adds, "I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing... ": these morning pieces are, as they have always been (I see now) in their way – some with more urgency than others – my anythings written.

Glimmer of hope, perhaps? I'll take what I can get.

Also: might have stumbled into something resembling if not acceptance then at least resignation – what's the difference between the two, I once asked my therapist; (shrug guy emoji), he replied): I don't necessarily feel better about it or less terrified (oh, those things I attach to my ability to put words to page) but I'm seeing the empty, dry well for what it is: an empty well.

That said, the question remains, as it long has, of how to fill the dried well back up. What brings me joy, a friend asked: my Switch, for one; the other, I realize now, is entering that period of, if not flow, then that time when the thing you've agonized over reveals the simplicity of its required realization (simple ≠ easy).

You may consider anything to have been written.