Preparing for Solstice

I haven't blogged all summer, all fall, but I have been writing. I wrote a short story which I'm proud of, an essay that I like. I am sitting in my small writing room that Jason built for me. Outside the snow is reflecting back into the sky. We are coming up to the shortest day of the year and I believe I have (for the moment) found a place of peace and a place from which I can create.

I have worked hard this year to banish some of the old worn-out scripts in my head. The lines that tell me I am worthless, that no one will want to read what I have written. The lines about not being interesting enough or good enough. All of those thoughts are trying to protect me. Trying, in their sad way to keep me safe, but I have to reconvince that part of me that the biggest protection I need is the protection of my bright shining light, protection of the magic in me that wants to come out in words, that wants to tell a story that makes other people feel less alone.

Asking Jay to build this room was a big part of that process. It is great to have the room, but even better is that I said "my writing is worth space. It is important enough to me to ask for help." And I have already done some good work in here. I will do more.

I have made many, many mistakes. I have followed my desires into spaces and places that are not healthy, that did not serve me. I have done things I am not proud of. Some of them seem loud and daring, but many are small and minor until you add them up, and see how they took me off course. And I have scars that meant that I was not always able to be smart or deliberate in my choices. Wounds that were sometimes festering, that were sometimes so painful that I would do anything to avoid them, that I would run away, or run towards any relief, even if that relief was going to wound me only further. But despite the mistakes I still believe there is magic and possibility in the quiet and non-instructive language of story, of memory. I know that I have wisdom from all those mistakes I made.

So coming into this dark season, as the light wanes and I am sometimes painfully reminded of what we all still struggle against, I pledge to come into this room and put words down one after another. I pledge to keep going until all the protective bits of me have turned their swords not against my writing, but against anything that dares to threaten it.