A Trampoline Called Acceptance - IWSG
Here it is, the first Wednesday of the month and I've fallen by the wayside once more. I've been enjoying an incredible run, soaring high in the skies of imagination where the words just melted off my fingers onto the page and I erroneously concluded the days of whine and wilted roses were over. Not! Writing has jilted me again.
My process reminds me of the story of La Loba depicted by Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With The Wolves. La Loba is one who can gather the bones of a dead coyote or wolf and sing over them until the animal is restored to run freely and magnificently through the desert. That's what I try do with the bones given to me except I have an inner snag that keeps tripping me up. Today some inner voice had me consider my plight and a question was proposed for my consideration:
What if this is simply part of your writing process, this swirling wheel of now you can do it, oops now you cannot? And what if there is nothing you can do about it? Would you still want to write?
Because I've tried everything. Yes, I have these times when it's smooth sailing and the work is a joy and I appreciate what I create. But inevitably, as if I were swinging on a star, I fall into a black hole of sheer inertia where I get stuck, every word penned lacking and all I know is it sucks, sucks, sucks. Then I get discouraged because for some reason I think it shouldn't be this way.
But I found that even with the question put that way, even if it will always be a struggle, would you still want to write... The answer was yes. Oh yes, I still would. Does that mean this will always be a part of my process? Well, it just might. So, I'm going to try acceptance. It's all I have left. I’m going to try to remember to appreciate the easy times, the riding of wild waves without drowning times, and accept the inevitable crash back to earth. Maybe in this way I’ll be able to learn to land more softly. Hey, now there’s something new to try. Or maybe I can build a trampoline out of acceptance where what goes up must come down but it also bounces back up ... eventually... and in the meantime have a lot more fun with it. Maybe then I’ll loosen what tends to harden before it turns into cement, requiring a jackhammer before forward motion is possible.
Posted for Insecure Writers Support Group</a>