Finding Joy and Creativity in the Exercise of Writing

I have grown to love writing in the morning and am so glad that I began this exercise. I never dreamed how helpful it would be. 

It was an agonizing beginning. It felt as if I had to fumble around in my brain for something to say and then P-U-L-L out those resistive, reluctant words that grabbed on to the edges of my mind and refused to come out. 

I wrote anyway. 

Stupid, inane, vacuous words that seemed pointless. 

But once I chipped away at the barrier of the perceived barrenness, I found thoughts that had been slumbering under the everyday. As I wrote and peeled away the layers of the day to day routine, laying it down on paper and freeing it from the cycles of the thought processes, I found there was room for deeper, obscured thoughts to rise to the surface. Undiscovered treasures that I have been mining each morning. 

I've discovered that if I don't practice the discipline of slowing my thinking to the pace of writing, the fingers of my brain simply rifle through my thoughts, lightly touching the surface of them, flitting and flickering; dancing and darting, but not taking the time to probe to any depth. 

This longhand scribbling every morning demands my brain to slow it's pace reaching into depths I didn't acknowledge in my mad scramble to "fix" puzzling problems. I can obsess over the little snags and tangles that come from living life, leaving myself confused and frustrated. Setting down these things on paper helps me work out the snarls of thought and oftimes work out a solution. That had been waiting in the wings the while time. 

Much to my surprise, I've fallen in love with this process. I've had freedom to explore my musings, opinions, feelings, desires about myself-of who I am, and who I'd like to be. 

Creativity. Ideas. Personal expression. Expressing my individuality with playful abandon. 

And it has been there all the time. 

Hidden in the labyrinth of my thoughts. 

Finding a Full {aka Messy} Life

This morning, in an effort to seek out the sensation of being "fully alive", I walked outside into the brisk cool of a fall morning; not with a warm bowl of oatmeal or piping hot cup of coffee as immunity against the chill, but a frozen glassful of a chocolate/peanut butter protein shake. (I firmly believe in dessert for breakfast.) Not seeking comfort from the cold, I seek it out, wearing shorts, but as a concession to prudence, also a flannel shirt. 

I welcome the tingle of cold air on my skin, bringing all my senses to full alert. Savoring this moment of life, being completely aware of my Self and drinking in the ache of the cold glass in my hand as I embrace this heightened awareness of beauty in pain. 

I feel the sticky ooze of chocolate around my mouth and like a kid, I giggle a little at the thought of running into a neighbor and imagine their thoughts at the sight of a grown (crone) woman wearing the mouth of a child. 

I suddenly realize that I want to more fully wrap myself in this grimy, grubby, unkempt chaos of this life that is mine. 

I recognized this morning with a new clarity that a messy life is a life that is Fully Alive. 

May I Introduce My(newfound)Self

I have, in the last two months begun writing Morning Pages; a writing exercise done first thing in the morning before distractions set in. The writing is spontaneous and free flowing. Handwritten in an 8 1/2 X 11" notebook, ideally, three pages, but because I can't have rules for such things, (I will get angsty quickly if I don't meet the "rule") I write what comes. Half a page, one page, four pages....I just write.

This has been an excellent practice for me, because it helps me solve problems --sometimes the answers come as I write. I get practice at using and choosing words. I vent, I ponder, I wail, I wonder. And yesterday, as I took a walk and conjured a scathing book club review in my head, I realized with sudden clarity that ---I AM A WRITER. I may not be a known, or even noted writer, but I love words and the process of finding The Right One and finding an atypical word to convey my thoughts. I've never considered myself a true writer because words don't just flow continually from me. I don't have stories living inside of me that I have to get out, as other writers have described. My writing is slowly deliberate, coming in fits and spurts as inspiration ebbs and flows.

I have begun, in the last couple of years, to "wake up to myself". I am 48 this month and am wondering if it takes everyone this long to come to and see themselves for who they really are. Do you spend the first half of your life growing your body--all the energies are preoccupied with the development of the body that the spirit and soul are in hibernation; and once body development is complete, the spirit/soul begin their growth? That's certainly how it seems for me.

And what aspect of yourself grows to the place that it activates your brave? What mechanism clicks into place so that your realize you want to incorporate ______ into your person? What part of my psyche opened up and revealed itself to say, "Here is who I REALLY am, and I'm not at all who you or I or anyone else thought I was. Even *I* am amazed at the person I'm discovering myself to be.

I am giddy with delight of discovery and surprised at the secretive places that I harbor. 

But every day, my brave gets bigger and I attempt to be more true and authentic to myself  as I uncover me.