Writing as Practice from Writing Down The Bones

“Writing practice embraces your whole life and doesn’t demand any logical form: no chapter 19 following the action in chapter 18. It’s a place that you can come to wild and unbridled, mixing the dream of your grandmother’s soup with the astounding clouds outside your window. It is undirected and has to do with all of you right in your present moment. Think of writing practice as loving arms you come to illogically and incoherently…

“Sit down right now. Give me this moment. Write whatever’s running through you. You might start with ‘this moment’ and end up writing about the gardenia you wore at your wedding seven years ago. That’s fine. Don’t try to control it. Stay present with whatever comes up, and keep your hand moving.” Natalie Goldberg.

This moment it is almost midnight and I am loving the space and freedom I feel right now to write my thoughts as practice – writing with no goal in mind, no objective that must be met, no outline formula to follow. I am able to come here wild and unencumbered – except right there – where I slowed down trying to spell that big old globbery word. Then I remembered where I am. I am running with my arms wide open through a meadow. I am a little girl in a white cotton dress, my hair is flying out behind me and I am bobbing up and down because I am skipping, not running. I am in no hurry. There is a hush, a potent stillness and all I can hear is the sound of the sun on the tall grass all around me.

This is writing because I have spare time. This is the practice of being present in my heart, feeling myself breathing, feeling the smile on my lips for no reason other than I am gripping my journal with one hand and the other hand, holding the pen, is flying across the page and it feels so good.

I need to sleep, but I am too much alive right now. Too much happy. I don’t even make sense. Too much good stuff. Too many days gone. Too long from my paper. Too good to be back!