A funny thing happens when I write, more on that later.
I have a friend that told me once that she is not one that has a love/hate relationship with running. She says that they are definitely monogamous. I have blogged about running before, and I can safely say that we are not monogamous, but we do hang out on a fairly regular basis, and we get along well enough to continue doing so. Still, my friend got me thinking about the relationships we build with ourselves through our hobbies, interests, or even passions. Portions of the people we make ourselves into are shaped, quite simply, by the things we do, and the thoughts, beliefs, and experiences that result from those things. My mom likes to say that I wake up in a different world every day. I think this is partially true, there are so many things that I want to learn and do. I find myself scouring Google for new interests all the time--my most recent obsession? Hair. Messy up-dos to be exact. Some of the biggies that started out with a little google search? Lampwork glass of course; check out my Etsy Shop to get an idea of where that took me. Some things I pursue whole-heartedly. Other things, I do a little research, shrug my shoulders and say, "Eh." Some are small crinkles in the plain of my existence, some are medium, and some, like the glass, are pretty good-sized lumps. However, there is something bigger floating just beneath this plain, a dark shape moving slowly and making ripples here and there, but never completely breaking the surface. My waters are never quite still.
This circles me back to my first point. A funny thing happens when I write. All those other things, glass, running, messy up-dos, I love them all in a comparatively small way. They make me, in part, who I am. But are we monogamous? Nah. Writing, however, that is my Big Love. That is the behemoth that serves as a backdrop to everything else. It is so huge that it is often easy to ignore...kind of like gravity. A very wise person once asked me, 'How can you make writing a part of your reality?' Good question. I need to not only poise this question to myself regularly, but I need to also find an answer, and to accept that the answer may be different each day. Writing sets the creaky, unused parts of my mind to turning. When I write, I think more, I speak more, and I see more. That dark shape moving slowly and silently beneath me starts to poke its nose over the surface, and that is frightening. There is nothing to protect it up here. It is big, sure, but it is vulnerable. So, I not only need to ask myself how to make writing a part of my reality, I also need to figure out how to be brave enough to do so.
