I am drinking a tea that promises to cleanse my liver and kidneys. I can only wish it godspeed.
I took the dogs for a walk this morning (ok, this afternoon) and thought of a dozen beautiful, funny things I can write about better than anyone else can write about them. And yet all weekend I've been tongue-tied to myself, shuffling thoughts like the laziest tarot dealer, dreading the labor of transcription. Nothing I've written down in the last week seems to have any life.
I applied to a residency this week so I can write the horror novel that came to me fully-formed in a dream two years ago. When I submitted my 250 word essay I felt like a shoe-in. Today I feel like I have nothing to show for myself but the sheer force of my wishful thinking.
My imagination is my greatest tool and can be my greatest undoing: tasks shine before me in my mind's eye, completed down to the last exhale and tiniest detail, practically glowing with already being done. What hope do I have against these visions untainted by reality. The dishes unwashed, the unexpected visitor, the brutal and inescapable demands of distraction.
While I walked the dogs I tried to have a conversation with the part of me that is convinced I simply do not have what it takes. This part of me is so strong, so sure, so blindly attached to protecting me from the sting of failure and the chaos of effort that it prefers to shut me down completely. And many times, it is easier by far to let this part lead the way. How much easier it seems to sleep until noon, get lost on the internet, watch television for hours past the point of entertainment, to watch the sun rise through exhausted eyes. This part does not count the ways in which I do not fail. This part does not count practice, this part does not understand rough drafts, forgiveness, mistakes, compassion.
I tried speaking out loud, wrangling the dogs through my neighborhood. "Don't be such a stereotype," I told Kava, who wanted to pee on a fire hydrant. Rain was barely falling, hanging in the air like mist, glazing my hair. To this part of myself I said, "I know why you're scared. But I can't let you be in charge. I know how to help you, comfort you. Let me. You don't realize that you're strangling me. Please stop." I took a deep breath in and out. I felt the shift inside me, the quieting.
I am trying so hard to feel ready for this. I think I need to accept that it may not be in the cards for me to feel equal to the task before I begin. My practice lies in doing it anyway.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
-Mary Oliver
