Many years ago, I had the privilege of being part of a writing group called Diving Deeper. There were many writers from all over the world who gathered together to talk about writing, about going deeper into our story telling, and diving into the places we really didn’t want to write about. Being able to write, share and get to know this group of writers was a very special time for me both as a writer and as a person. It was with this group I learned about distance, about trying not to write about something personal for example, that was traumatic or intense for a few years, sometimes as long as five years because the time between will help you to be able to move past some of the raw emotions tied to the event. I think this concept must have seeped into my soul because it has been a long time since I have like writing anything at all.
In fact, it has been two years maybe more since I even attempted to keep a journal of any kind. Daily writing has been very difficult for me to do, like running straight into the barbed wire instead of hopping over it like a graceful gazelle. I have tried to write even a few lines every day but it never lasts for more than day or so. I have been thinking about why that is today. I think it has a lot to do with the dramatic and drastic changes that the pandemic has brought to not just my life, but to everyone’s (the global scale overwhelms me to think about). My recent return to working in the office is also dramatic change from working in relative isolation in my apartment for the past 2 years. The pandemic of course is not over but protocols and mandates are changing or being lifted. I think that it has all been too intense and too immediate for me to be able to get the distance I need to be able to write about any of it. At the same time, I need to write about it. At least some of it. Maybe all of it.
I am not big on grand declarations. This one is not meant to be one of them (although it seems like it is growing into one) but it is a starting point. Like hopping a barbed wire fence when you have a niggling thought in your head. There was a time when I couldn’t stop writing. There was so much buzzing around in my mind. I don’t know if I am going to be able to dive into anything. I am not sure if anything I write now, whether it is fiction or non-fiction will be possible, but I feel an inner push to try. Maybe it is a desire to get some balance back into my life, the fire I hold for writing or maybe something entirely different, but I am waking up in the middle of the night thinking about writing. That is usually a pretty good sign to get back to it. There are stories percolating which have been at a low boil for almost a hundred months now. They are starting to beg to be written. Not only are the stories are asking for attention, but poems, thoughts and dreams are asking to be recorded. I can’t even remember the last time a poem has woken me up or made me stop in the middle of doing something so that I could write it down, but it has been happening. It is good. Not that I have actually listened and written anything down yet, but it is good that the feeling has returned.
All this to say that I plan on writing more, soon. What will arrive? I have no idea. If nothing arrives, I have a couple of notebooks filled with fragments of poetry and stories that I could type out. The little writing that I have been doing has been handwritten. We will see what happens. I may even write about what the past two years have been like for me. I have really resisted the idea of writing about what pandemic life has been like, and what my personal experience has been. I am not sure that it will be at all interesting for anyone else to read but I have never let that stop me from being able to write for myself. I think I need to do that, write for myself. I had a niggle when I just typed this… write for myself. I have repeated it three times now so I really must do it.
Anyway, more to come.
la
lei fraser 