This particular reflection has been simmering on a back burner since I turned 24 in September.
I finally started going out on the town after my cousin brought me to a concert in Billings. He reminded me how his life changed when he did the things enjoyed instead of the things he felt like he should enjoy.
I decided to just start buying tickets for myself instead of waiting. In so doing, friends have found me and I kept going out until I signed up for a professional licensing exam that forced me indoors and deep into books.
Meanwhile, my new friends clamored for me to join in so many more excursions!
And how thankful I've been to find a regular group of good people.
Between going out and studying, I've been almost entirely away from writing since November.
I've spent time and money and time again away from my art and expression. The end of studying left space for ways of spending my money to spill in. Considering myself a writer, the lack of writing has been different.
I can't tell if I miss the writing, though. I'd been writing for proud reasons, for selfish and self-interested means. Self-preservation, immortality. To hang on to time, and in so doing, miss the day. Since putting it down, I've been noticing the minutes move faster and with richer colors.
So I say this:
So I say this:
Let the arguments go.
Remind yourself of outer space and death however you can.
Look back to life, give names to things. Listen to them, be always curious because you can never fully understand.
Watch animals who do not worry, just as you watch the plants. Look how great they are. Products of the healthy soil around them. Focus on the music around them and around you. Do not try and bend the spoon. That is impossible. Only try and realize the truth.
There is not always something to seize. Do not chase so much as listen.
Add goodness to your life. Burn yourself out if you have to, but learn how to rest. It looks different every time. When your life is full, pay attention to what falls away, notice what you miss, leave behind what you do not.
Almost nobody reading this should find use in it, but maybe comfort. These things I have found for myself and yours will (or have) come when it is time.
Until then, if you are here, be lost in my mirror with me. My muse speaks faster than my hands can move and I have grown out of the idea that my words will immortalize my personhood. They are only as lasting and useful birdsong.
I resent how puddly and stagnant the pride of writerhood becomes. The moment it shifts from expression to selfish ambition. When I am no longer welcome with that muse.
I spin about the delivery of envelopes. Writing absent replies instead of inspired truths. I believe myself to be too self-involved and fear that I will always misunderstand the people I meet, just as I fear they misunderstand me. I hope here to write into this fear. Embrace it. To write outside and see myself or have others see themselves in me. I believe in so doing, I can be soil, and see myself as soil.
Now I want to go forward, craft these as little posts for anyone who is traveling behind me.
