When You Wonder What It's All For
A thought comes to me for the book I'm writing. The book no one knows about yet. The one I'm afraid to let out of my sight. I run to my leather journal to scribble down my thought before it's chased away by someone calling "Mama" or by some random to-do or grocery list item. My journal is the one place where I don't have to worry. The one place I'm truly free.
I sigh deeply as I let my thought fill the silky pages. More thoughts come, and I can't write fast enough. I open my laptop and try to get it all down.
A tiny springtime spider crawls onto the wall behind my desk and I almost lose focus. I hear a crash in the next room and the sound of juice spilling over the side of the kitchen counter. I get down enough words to hold my place before taking care of the spider and the spill.
In one split second, I've gone from mama to writer and back again.
And just like that, I've made progress on what I'm calling "my book". I see it being published one day and helping people, but for now, I go on with cleaning the kitchen and scraping the spider, and the book lives only in my leather journal. It will have to wait there until it's ready. Until I am ready.
I return to my journal the next time an idea comes. If I'm not interrupted, I stop when I start to feel strained and pinched, when I see my limits asserting themselves—even if it's in the middle of a sentence. I will come back when my soul is quiet again.
This is the kind of writing we long for. Taking down notes on the juicy secrets that permeate our souls. The stuff behind our makeup and masks and grammatical concerns.
This is the writer's way.
This is flow.
If only it would chase us down and be our companion every day. If only that were the writer's way every day. And maybe it is the way for some, but for mothers like me, the soul (and the house) is rarely quiet enough to let me write deeply unless I make space in my calendar, take to a room alone, impose a deadline on myself, and put everything else on hold until the deadline is met.
I do this weekly.
For over four years now I’ve been meeting self-imposed weekly writing deadlines.
Come hell or high water, spiders, spills, sickness, lack of inspiration, laziness, apathy, or even international travel, I publish a piece of my writing on my blog or in my email group every Friday. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t write at all. This is something I know about myself. I’ve made peace with it. I might even love it.
I love that I’m a mother who writes.
And yet, some days (most days if I’m honest), doubts arrive unbeckoned in my heart and on the pages of my journal looking something like this. . .
There were days when she thought,
“This is ridiculous—
I am ridiculous—
What is it all for?”
Because I spend a lot of time writing, journaling, publishing blogs, formatting my self-published books, and even building a watercolor practice and taking painting and pottery classes—time I could be hanging out with my teenagers, planning beautiful meals for my family or taking on new clients for my paying job, or doing all sorts of other things.
But thankfully, perspective soon arrives as a response every single time. . .
She kept going anyway,
because maybe,
just maybe,
big dreams do come true.
Maybe creativity is worth it either way.
Dear reader, if you ever find yourself wondering, “What’s it all for?” when it comes to your creative practice, your craft, or anything else you do to spark your own inner fire, I hope those words come to mind.
I hope you create anyway.
I hope you never stop.
💛