On not writing
The sense of ‘writing in my head’ has largely gone. I have acquired a sense of ‘not writing in my head’ that seems like a loss but perhaps in everyday nowness, is that seeming reality and the seeing of what is has grown exponentially so I am not so much in a state of ‘once removed’. This seems like a plus and the phrase, ‘I must write that down’ appears to have become redundant.
The idea, planted in my mind throughout that I am not writing is not borne out fully but the time frame bracketed by ‘The Year of Covid ‘gives me another chance to review what’s been happening in the swirling depths by seeing what has washed over onto paper, into documents and notebooks. This is a task I never relish and uses skills I am tardy in employing. Skills I’ve never really developed, though I read voraciously I come to my own writing often at the top of a held intake of breath. The house is testament to the attachment there is to the writing, a cupboard or three, boxes in drawers and under beds and I have lived here for 27 years.
What is missing now is a habit pattern I have used for many of those years to keep me sane, writing first thing in the morning in the manner of Julia Cameron’s morning pages where a great spilling out warms up my hands and brain and surprises and rewards me later with creative departures that other writing often fails to supply, since writing is the substance that oils the wheels of creativity in the case of this life.
I’ve exchanged it seemingly, though I pick up the morning books at other times, without habit defining when, for a foolscap looseleaf file in which I make notes and drawings when zooming into workshops, talks and satsangs. I’ve acquired more crayons, colours and drawing books this year than ever before, my mother’s legacy of good quality coloured pencils supplemented by pound shop materials I fool myself I’m buying for my grand daughter. I’ve also bought lots of ink cartridges and a bottle of ink and sorted out all the pens, throwing none away in the process.
The sense of not writing may turn out to be larger than the year’s deficit presents. The sense of so much going by unrecorded. The reality of no longer writing on the hoof as I am so much more in the house and the outings are faster paced for exercise rather than observation, though a small notebook and my favourite fine line pen are always in my bag but my bag is often not with me as I have no need for it. I carry my phone for emergencies and radio listening and my keys and the Covid accoutrement of hand gel, wipes and tissues and a mask of course and a scaled down purse with a debit card and a bit of cash for the fruit stall. The many library and membership entry cards are also sadly left at home.
The sense of ‘writing in my head’ has largely gone. I have acquired a sense of ‘not writing in my head’ that seems like a loss but perhaps in everyday nowness, is that seeming reality and the seeing of what is has grown exponentially so I am not so much in a state of ‘once removed’. This seems like a plus and the phrase, ‘I must write that down’ appears to have become redundant.
I last posted on my Wordpress site in the summer on the annoyances of park life. A poet I knew and love was posting terrific poems every day at first, then a trickle and now not at all it seems and I don’t go looking. I’m not that interested in the proliferation of Covid writing that has taken place but I’m very interested in what has taken place in the minds of ‘now not writers’ and ‘no longer writers’ as I think the swerves in such minds will tell us something more than the writing might if expressed.
Covid dust peppers my poems and they are not totally absent but I am largely overcome by the magnitude of death dust we’ll be inhaling for many years to come, if not the rest of our lives when that has started to settle and more of the dead have been buried. People will continue to be dying from Covid for many years to come directly and indirectly, as the fall out affects us.
It is only with great anger that I can write about that. I have written a few stark poems as well as a bit of journalling but am largely overcome by the magnitude of all that death. A feeling comes over me as I write it, intense, tingling. There has been no lack of feeling. It’s not being expressed through writing though it seems, rather it is more being felt. I’ll try to read what has been written but there’s a sense of tumbling forward into an unknown future that writing can’t quite capture at the moment. I’m probably wrong. Maybe my psyche is just taking a break from writing.
Lynn-Marie Harper.