(Orig. posted in October 2015.)
I have a wry smile on my face. Going back to writings from the past - words that I’ve kept sequestered in a vault, hidden from the light of the world - I feel the twang of embarrassment. I giggle at the younger me.
There was an epoch of my life during which I was finding a new voice, a mature one: a voice that did not speak the language of the head but was, instead, diving into the depths of heart and soul. I sought a voice…full of grief, or the wisdom of joy, or longing for compassion. But I did not yet have a sage practice for cultivating these.
The writing itself was just so young. And it was young. I was young.
My dear hospice patient calls me “little girl” (a descriptor I would normally cringe to hear used about me). She is a centenarian – twice my age in years, decades and scores wiser in life experience. I appreciate her affection, her perspective.
We need at least these two for wise writing:
1. loads of time spent actually doing the writing, reading, shuffling, cutting, rereading, adding, tweaking, editing, revising, editing some more, polishing, copyediting, reading one final time, glossing.
2. evolution and maturity as human beings, learning from those experiences we are handed or that we claim, figuring out the pathway through adversity, growing our compassion for self and others, giving of our best selves to the world.
My writing from long ago reflects the immaturity of writing experience as well as life experience.
Life experience. Writing experience. Beautiful manuscripts are born from the convergence of these two. The ecotone between maturity-toward-wisdom within ourselves and our commitment to writing practice is where the real goodies grow.
I’ve learned volumes since those early writings. I have written volumes since then too.
We must cross the temporal bridge from an older life to a fresher one. Move toward a life of vibrancy, bright color, firelight-warmth-in-the-winter, tingling-cool-breeze-in-the-summer. It is a journey.
Even yesterday’s writing can look a little bit raw, can evoke the sense that I’ve learned something, perhaps small, but powerful, since even twenty hours ago.
Looking at a piece of writing (such as this one today), I make note of the seventy-three edits I would need to make to deem it “just okay.”
I realize that the courage it takes to put out something into the world that might be a little clumsy, unrefined, or a lot “less than” (some imagined pinnacle of perfection) is much more worth mustering than the scared-keeping-quiet wordless place of years ago. I would rather put out the in-progress work than to wait (until when?) for the moment I decide it’s worthy, finished, or finessed.
Isn’t this one of the definitions of growth: to choose the red-cheeked-blush of our imperfection-in-retrospect over the stagnant-marginal-safety of not bothering to chance it at all?
The risk is worth it, even if I do still have that wry grin plastered across my cheeks as I press the “publish” button on the blog site.
