tether
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Last year I decided to try keeping a log of my days. Most nights, before I go to sleep, I pull a notebook out of my nightstand and make a list of bullet points about what I did: Gym. Ideas for short story. Novel brainstorming. Draft for newsletter. Drove to Portland to pick up xyz. Backgammon with Mark. Read. Etc. It’s boring reading, but it’s an attempt to unlock what’s hidden in my mind. Often, I find that writing down went for a walk, reminds me that while I was walking I was thinking about one of my kids, or listening to an important podcast, or contemplating the best use of our property in a climate-altered future. So the bullet points sometimes take on a life of their own and morph into little essays or lines of poetry or plot ideas for stories.
This is actually the hardest part of writing for me, I think, continually mining my own life, not letting thoughts sink to the warm dark compost of the subconscious, but pulling them out into the light and pinning them to a page like tiny black beetles, or powder-dusted moths. (Of course, even these skewered specimens are part of the continual composting in the mind.) The writer’s job is to be attentive to what we would normally ignore, to give shape and form to the humus of ideas lying quiet and fertile within us.
Not everything that gets pinned to the page is worth bringing to life though. Journaling (even in the form of logging) helps uncover my worn-out themes and tired tropes. I can see on my pages the fixation on some experiences and the underemphasis of others equally, if not more, important. I can see the pattern of biases, the pockets of anger that indicate I’m not in a state of forgiveness yet. I can see the doubts that rise and fall with my hormones, and the need to build more mental stamina. I can see my fears pounding for attention.
I think often about the subjectiveness of our lives. Unless we are in the regular presence of small children or the sick or very elderly, much of contemporary life is a helium balloon, untethered from the tangible and the earthy. Food arrives on shelves in packages, money exists in pixelated bank statements, trash gets toted off in trucks to unseen locations, beauty is nothing more than photogenics. Anchoring, like decluttering, is a survival skill for the modern age. I’m a word person, so journaling is one of my tethers. My husband is not; I don’t imagine he would find a daily bullet list enlightening at all. He’s more likely to discover his thoughts on a run or mowing the lawn, which he does. The point is, we need to tie the balloon to something or it’s lost.
But more than that is the need to know we exist in this world for a purpose. “That we are here is a huge affirmation,” John O’Donohue says. “Somehow life needed us and wanted us.” Being attentive to the whispered messages of common life may be the writer’s job, but attentiveness to the messages of our individual lives is everyone’s job. The disconnectedness that pervades our age leads to anger, fear, anxiety, and a sense of un-reality. If we are here, it is not to be plagued by the spirit of the age, but because we have something to offer, something to combat it, to bring us together, connect us and nurture life.
So, consider this post, rambling and mundane as it is, a whisper in the dark, an encouragement to dig and discover, a wave to bring you into harbor and an anchor to help you stay. Find your way, then find your way. We need you here.
If you want to share, tell me about your journaling habits, or the other ways you tether and discover yourself in the comments!
