Lately I am understanding more and more about this mysterious creative force that takes me, and yet, truly, I understand nothing. I know it uses me in ways I cannot comprehend. I know it takes my body and dances me.
Makes me write, makes me draw, makes me love.
It is Devine.
It moves within me, like the wind.
I saw the new Avatar movie, recently. It made me smile, because I recognised me. A girl who feels the world, who knows the earth, who breathes its song.
I suffer greatly for my sensitivity, at times, but it is also my greatest gift. My sweetest home.
As he spun his web of gold around the evening, Sun smiled on the river children, below. Oh, how they splashed and cackled and loved!
What would Moon think of this beauty, Sun wondered, knowing how his dear and sleepy friend ached for the pain of the humans. This sight would surely glimmer her into a new and cheerful day!
But where was Moon?
Not dangling upon the cherry trees, nor casting a shimmering trail along the rivers’ edge. Tonight, Moon was tidying the evening sky, waiting for the river children to fall tired, and find their sleepy ways.
‘But Moon!’ said Sun, ‘The humans are smiling, look at them! Each of them laughing all along the shore!’
Moon put her quiet finger to her lips. Gently, without changing the calm expression on her face, she pointed to a patch of earth, darkened with gloom.
‘Oh, Moon,’ said Sun, heart broken as he spotted a small child, among the darkness, sad, cold and alone.
‘The others don’t know about him, Sun. They can only see what shines upon their day. This little boy needs me, Sun. I see him. I am ready.’
And with her words of calm and compassion, Moon spun a ball of silvery blue and cast it upon the lone boy of the earth. The boy, who had previously been lost in a puddle of tears, caught sight of Moon’s shine in the pool at his feet.
‘Look, Moon! He’s not crying anymore!’ shouted Sun, like a ball bounding along the open horizon at daybreak.
‘No, Sun. I don’t suppose he is,’ Moon smiled, wiping the last of the cobwebs off the dusty fridge of the sky.
The German Shepherd changed things. She considered revenge, but then, he had always nurtured a sick fantasy of being mistreated by women. How inconvenient life could be at times.
Still. He had known she would only consider small dogs, and so, it was absolute that he must pay. The unfortunate event would be dressed as an accident. She would smile politely as a fall occurred.
Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months without a glimpse of opportunity. No staircase to fumble him down, no veranda step to miss at the expense of his face. It was odd. And yet, she remained vigilant, eyes wide open to any subtle clue that the Gods of revenge were ready to offer a hand in support.
The dog, whose name was Bart or Simpson (or something vulgar) was really rather sweet, which became confusing. It was as if a thorn in her thumb had become a familiar, almost welcome, friend; the sting long gone. All that remained was the dog, and her aloof husband who, for some reason, was acting a jealous fool of the dog and her joyous embrace of his overly large paws.
She would think on his odd behaviour again, in the morning. Or now, perhaps, as the Nurse set her cast for the third time in three weeks and told the same old story.
How unfortunate that the nurse had also fallen down the stairs in that very same year.
Pop’s old library is full of it; lamp dappled walls, beautiful to look at, even more beautiful to feel.
How do you describe a feeling? You can only feel, and open up so others can know what you’re trying to tell them. Some people never open up. Some open and close and open again, like a snail rolling in and out of its shell.
I look for the switch, every day. The switch for the orange light inside of me. I’m the snail, and it is dark in here.
I will keep searching until I feel the light. When I feel the light, I will open, and journey on.
The quiet has come upon me, and so I have to write.
It’s a strange quiet, a wonderful one, however mixed with a soft melancholy. It’s been with me, on and off, for as long as I can remember, and so it is that I recognise this feeling as my soul.
The little girl me felt it when she looked out at the big world, an ant amongst giants.
The teenage me felt it when she saw the grey sadness of all the adults passing by.
And now I feel it. When I am not thinking life, but feeling it all the way through to the tender aching parts.
Every version of me has used this quiet to write.
So what is the purpose of this particular post, you might ask, and if you were to ask this you’d be right to do so. I am asking this. But the truth is, I know the answer.
The answer is: my soul has nothing to say, still she must speak.
And this is how she does so.
This is how she sways into the world beyond my eyes.
I mean, I sometimes wonder if I can still write fiction that peels my skin from the bone. Words I read back after I’ve written them and find that they speak to my soul.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written any fiction. My poor novel is sitting desperately among the cobwebs of my computer, wondering where I am. The short stories I once wrote are just that: short stories I once wrote.
The truth is, I’m afraid.
Because I wonder if I can still write.
And so I procrastinate and procrastinate until I don’t even try anymore. I know it is simply a matter of starting. But. I don’t even start.
I am too busy to scratch my nose, also, so that is one actual fact I can’t ignore. Even if I was brave enough to face the looming blank page, there is no time for that in these early stages of newborn life. These moments, now, are stolen moments I am taking back from Motherhood.
And I’ve chosen to give them to this place.
My heart place.
My home. (Where all of you are. My beautiful bloggy family.)
If history has anything to say about this pattern of me, I will make my way, eventually, to the place of bravery that allows for creativity to run free of the well. I will, once again, bring my whole soul to the surface of my world. I will create worlds, and lives, and beauty through art.
But that time is not now.
Now, I am here. (Happily, peacefully, lovingly I am here.)
Savouring these stolen moments.
Waiting for the baby to wake, running from the fears I know are lurking in the shadows.
I am not afraid to sit still. Here. Now. I am not afraid of this.
The sweet divinity that lingers at the edge of life.
Writers and artists know it well. Actors and musicians feel it within their bodies. And none of us have any clue as to what it is. Not even those who believe, beyond a doubt, that they do know the source of this most beautiful, magical wind.
To understand this force would surely be like bottling and dissecting infinity. How could you bottle a never ending force like that? More to the point, how could you ever truly understand what it was or where it had come from? I just don’t think it would be humanly possible.
I read a book a little while ago, by Sue Monk Kidd, named ‘The Book of Longings’. I’ve been re reading it, and last night I couldn’t help but smile as I came across a familiar idea. The invisible divinity. She mentions it in the book, and right away I knew I had to share it with you all. Surely as readers and writers, both, you have felt this invisible magic. How beautiful it is to know we are not alone in our recognition of it.
The act itself of writing evoked powers, often divine, but often unstable that entered the letters and sent a mysterious animating force rippling through the ink.
Sue Monk Kidd. The Book Of Longings
At University, I studied writing. One of the units I studied was called, ‘Writing: Finding your Voice’ but the thing was…it never seemed as simple as that, to me. That we each have a ‘voice’ we can use to write with in a unique and beautiful way, or that one could simply ‘find’ this voice. Like finding a tennis ball beneath a shrubby, weedy bush in the desert.
All I can say about this mysterious voice is that I feel its magic arise when I relax my entire body and stop thinking. I’ve heard the phrase thrown about that, to evoke the force, we need to ‘get out of our own way’. To me, this is both entirely accurate and also impossible to comprehend.
Just whose way are we getting out of exactly?
And what, exactly, is the mysterious animating force behind it all?
brooke-cutler.com 