To be a writer
Generative expression, being witnessed and the thoughts that want to escape
When I started this Substack, my intention was to use it - as I did with my first blog eleven years ago - as a container to process my experience of life in a way that I could share.
Back then, a beautiful little community gathered around my blog and it was immensely nourishing and valuable to have the conversations and friendships that ensued.
There is something about sharing our most real experiences of being human that brings peace.
Something about being witnessed, perhaps.
I miss it. I miss the extra motivation and drive that came from knowing people were listening, that my thoughts had somewhere to land. I journal almost every day - but it’s not the same. Am I perhaps some kind of inner exhibitionist?!
There are some thoughts that I don’t feel a desire to share - lots, most! But some want to worm their way out and live in the world. Perhaps they are the ones whose function is generative; they know they are just one voice in a conversation that needs to be / is being had, hence their need to escape the confines of my mind.
When I started writing again four months ago, after having silenced myself during the pandemic, all that came out was anger - so much anger. And when there wasn’t anger there was silence within me. I started to think that maybe I only have something to say when I’m angry, which certainly didn’t use to be the case but things change, humans change - it seemed possible.
Recently, having done a lot of healing over the last few months, other words have started to come. In small drips and drabs, nothing much, not enough to constitute a blog post. But like the first primroses in spring announcing the imminent onset of the daffodils, they gave me hope.
Hope that perhaps, my voice was starting to liberate itself again. That perhaps, after this long hiatus of regular writing and sharing, I might actually one day feel like a writer again.
*deep sigh*
It does feel like an essential part of myself.
When I manage to form into words something that lives deep inside me, that I had perhaps previously not fully understood or managed to articulate, it feels absolutely wonderful.
That in itself is a great reward, and then if people read it and get it - get it so that they are really with me in the reflection or idea or proposal - well now, that is a whole other level of magic.
To feel heard and understood - what a truly marvellous thing that is.
So my quest - to become a writer again - asks of me the following at this juncture: to give myself the most expansive permission possible with regards to subject, style, length and quality.
And that, therefore, is what I will do.
What appears on this blog from here on out only time will tell…I’m curious to find out!