“The act of writing is a radical loss of certainty,” teacher and author Nancy Sommers once wrote. He reminds his students of this as they discuss her essay in class. What does she mean? He interprets it as not knowing what it is you want to say until you begin putting words on paper. Letting it be messy, letting the ideas come as you write
Write into the void, he tells himself. Don’t think, just write. It’s a difficult practice. But the thinking gets in the way. So keep writing, and look for that little spark, that moment that Pat Schneider used to call, “turning the corner.” Let the writing take you on a journey. Follow it.
Sometimes, the path is so clear: the essay about the difficult student who taught him a lesson, or the way in which friendly ghosts sometimes hang around and offer advice. “Don’t try to control it,” his dead mother tells him, and she would know, since she liked things a certain way. “Just have some fun,” the dead dad says. “Oh, honey, go with the flow. See where it takes you,” says Merijane.
The words help him wind down, ground himself again in the motion of the pen sliding across the page, or the words filling the screen. Still, it’s easier when there’s a story, characters to follow (or to hide behind). Like the grown niece who offers her professional advice as a registered dietician, convinces him to get tested for Vitamin D levels, and prescribes the sun and spices: turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, swirled into a coconut oil base, dissolved into hot almond milk. Or the nephew who calls for advice during a painful break up. “We still love each other,” he says, “that’s normal, isn’t it?”
Children he has nurtured now grown up, becoming lawyers and music producers, and friends. You give love, you get love. Is it really that simple? Nothing is that simple, he thinks, and then the chorus of the dead returns. “Love doesn’t have to be complicated, ” one of them says. “Trust yourself,” says another, “your intuition is strong.” He sips his tea, does his morning yoga, talks to living friends on the phone in late night conversations, imbibing rosé and raw almonds, desiring cheese. But the only thing that really brings him back to the center is the writing, the action, the unknowing, the trust. These words. Here on the page. Two feet on the solid foundation. Concrete, not brick. Strong as a ship gliding across the sea. Tall as the tallest building, never wavering.
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The prompt this time was the “Two Lists” prompt, which uses two headings that are in opposition. For a detailed explanation, see this previous post.
This time the two headings were:
Things that are durable/strong
Things that break easily or are fragile
The Catalyst 