Write, Dear Soul, And it Will Come

This weekend, I heard illustrator Andy Pizza speak at a conference. In his message, he mentioned keep the humans in the analytics of what you do. It was refreshing. He made us all laugh about how the analytics drive what we do (oh, Instagram, we love(d) you, but what is happening?) Now, when we get onto the Gram to find our fave blooper reels, we are inundated with shopping, courses, and others selling themselves. When someone says 'personal brand' I want to giggle and then scream. Are we really a commodity?

No, dear soul, we are human. Let's keep the humans in it.

Today, I attended a Writer's Workshop. That makes me nervous laugh just to say it...writer's workshop. I sit here, with a story under me, bursting to be written, and a method coming my way for the process, but yet, I doubt.

Yet I doubt.

Some things occurred in this past week that has taken the trajectory of my life from settled, drama-free, to explosive, reactionary, and unsteady.

The last part sits like a pit in my stomach.

We've never been here before. For twelve years now, we have weathered the storms together in our home in Tennessee, in the woods, in the peace of it all. And now, uncertainty has cast her net across our lives.

I was left to process this alone, even though we have weathered the storms together for sometime. And I know, deep in the cellular crevasses that I needed to be alone to process all of this.

For as much as we, Chad and I, have weathered together, I am raw even from his journey of late. I am raw because I have given and given. And when you have given and given, there is nothing left for you to be filled with.

So on this International Day of Peace, I write. I wrote three of my 'morning' pages (at seven in the evening, because I had a work thing this morning), then I sat down to think about the characters in my book that need development, and I couldn't process anything too academic at the moment, so instead, I am writing just to write. Mostly, I know this is a practice for myself, no one else. It keeps me going, keeps me grounded. Helps me to connect to the ethers that want me to to write.

This post is taking a different turn, and that is because I am taking a different turn. As much as I want to be relevant and matter, right now the thing that I need most is to matter to myself and to be able to write whatever pours out onto the page.

For myself. Because as a soul knows, if you can't take care of yourself (that O2 mask has to go on you first), then who will take care of them?

So, as a writer on her journey, I ask you, what is next?

Is it a job in writing, a MFA in writing, an opportunity to take the marketing, the adventure, the educational career and make something of it all?

A moment ago there was a glimpse on the horizon of something that is heading my way. And so I pause, I take a deep breath.

I know very well that this life is beautiful and that I am going to move. We are going to move. Don't sell out, don't believe for one minute that you aren't right where you need to be, that life isn't screaming at you to believe in yourself, and that you are loved.

This life is more than love, too, it is rich, deep, beautiful and full of all the wonderful things that make you tick - your quirks, your vibe, your moods, your hobbies. You are uniquely cellular, down to those cellular crevasses.

As I write this, I am listening to this song, they lyrics are so appropriate: there is more and in that more, you have to know that you don't have to give up. You have a big supporter.

I support you for one.

I was a public school educator for two decades, I have seen the worst of what humanity can look like - and what it can look like on a child.

And you are going to make it. Kids are resilient, so whatever you learned, were taught, were exposed to, you are going to make it.

I have messed up, I have been broken by this life, this space around me. I have hurt people I trusted, family, friends, and lovers. I have been hurt by people I trusted, by lovers, and friends and family members.

And I pick up the computer, the pencil, the pen, and daily I write. I write those morning (evening) pages because I know very well that the good and the therapy come from them. (Thank you, Julia Cameron, for this.) And I pedal my bike weekly a ton to cycle the crap out. I make amends where I can, and where I can't I pray/wish well for those people.

If you are a writer, what tools do you use? Do you write for pleasure or for work? Do you write only for yourself, or for others?

This post in particular is a musing of sorts, content of sorts of where the next phases will head.

A shift to the depths of it all.

And we suggest, dear soul, that you make your adventures many and keep your heart full.