Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder.
Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you;
figure out what you have to say.
It’s the one and only thing you have to offer.  ”

— barbara kingsolver

It was the summer of 2007 when i picked up a paintbrush for the very first time. I was forty- three years old and had been assisting at an art summer camp. The teacher had listened to  the words spilling from my mouth each morning as I dropped my kids off. Words about creativity and humans as creative beings. Clearly I was trying to work something out and she recognized it. On the last day, she set up a table with a board, directed me to choose the colors I wanted and she put a paintbrush in my hand and set me free. Literally. She set me free to explore myself as an artist. to trust myself, to believe that I know how to do this.

She set me free and I promptly began to cage myself again.

In my quest to find my artistic voice, I gave too many people and teachers, permission to guide me  which  is not what locked me in. What held me captive is how I lost my ability to hear myself over their voices. I  lost the joy of the process of creating. It's stunning how quickly it happened. I've been prying open those bars ever since. It takes work to get free and work to remain free. Most of the time now, I am very clear  about myself as an  artist and how I want to live in the world with my creative integrity intact. Though sometimes I drift from my center and have to realign, it is infrequent.

But what about my words, my writing?

I didn't grow up journaling. I didn't have  diaries and journals full of my every thought.  There wasn't  much privacy in my childhood home and  the boundaries that a emerging adult needs were not honored. I would never have felt safe putting my thoughts down on paper. I did write awkward and angsty poetry in secret as a teenager. I was trying to manage my heart in  some incredibly painful times. The power of words was obvious to me. That's why I kept them close so they couldn't be used against me. That's why I played with syllables and rhymes and the rhythm of phrases.  I used abstract words to shape my very real experiences and the feeling that were tangled up with them.

Then I grew up.

 

Words were  co-opted, directed, controlled. I hid my words in notebooks and journals. Pages of questions and doubts and lamentations. But then someone set me free years before that art teacher did. In 2000 I read Writing Down the Bones  by Natalie Goldberg which became a guide for living as much as for writing. It is one of my sacred texts. Without it,  I don't think I could have taken the steps I did in 2007 to begin a relationship with my creativity.

I wrote my very first blog post twenty years ago. I blogged through our homeschooling days, through the deconstruction of my Christian faith, and through my exploring myself as an artist. I wrote clunky sentences at the end of the day, ten minute updates, proving my existence in the world. For a season, I wrote daily lists of noticing my  life, pounding stakes into the ground  labeled, "be here, be now" navigating a world without my son. Breadcrumbs to find the way home when I wandered too far into my grief.

maybe that is it.

I write to find the way home. 

Sometimes  all I can do is keep my head down, counting the steps, keep going. It's not very descriptive. If anything, it is rote but it keeps me moving. Step by step.

Other times, my  eyes take in every detail, a spectrum of colors, a landscape of textures and sounds. Wonder holds me by the hand, whispering "look at that! Look. at that."

As I journey home, I am taking note, drawing the map I need so that maybe I will get lost less frequently.

I've been more than a little lost lately. More than a little lost  with my words. And I've realized that just like I caged myself after being set free by that art teacher, I have caged my words. I've placed too much pressure on them. Demanding perfection and performance. I've lost the freedom to write clunky sentences at the end of my day. I began to believe it has to be more than that to be valid and worthy.

The truth is that I write for myself. but I post for others.

I post to fling permission that mediocre words and clunky sentences, and not knowing the way home, are valid and worthy simply because we say so. We have the power to validate ourselves, certify ourselves. I post so that maybe you will feel a little less alone and a little more empowered to say your words, speak your truth, share your life however ordinary it is. This is where i find freedom.

However you have found your way to my words, I want to say to you, just as I say to myself,

"celebrate your ordinary life, make your messy marks, write your clunky sentences. Don't judge the worthiness of your words, your creativity, or your life. You belong here. Now, let’s live, create, write with no one looking over our shoulder”