Do you ever take a break from writing or, god forbid, from reading?
Or maybe not a break but you get distracted.
Or waylaid.
Or lost?
And then you worry that you'll never get back to words again?
Because the path has been blown over with leaves or you've forgotten how to think that way?
It's scary.
I've been in a writing ditch for awhile, and last night the muck cleared.
The same 26 letters that are available to me every day — the ones that have just been inscrutable lately — suddenly fell into place on the page. Thank goodness.
Who wants to be without poetry?
Nothing
(Yep. That's the whole poem. I just didn't have the heart to excerpt something this small and perfect. For more treasures, go see Sara Lewis Holmes for Poetry Friday. That's what I'm gonna do.)
I find that I stop reading out of fear. Isn’t that awful? Fear that what I read will be so good, so out of reach for me as a writer, that I’ll just drown in jealousy. But that never happens. Instead, when I pick back up a book, it’s so very humble and so much its very own thing that I realize I can be safe there. No need to angst. Just read. Ahhhhhh.
Btw, my Poetry Friday link is here: http://saralewisholmes.blogspot.com/2011/09/poetry-friday-only-love-can-do-that.html I believe you found an old one. 🙂
How crazy is THAT???? How did my little fingers take me there??
ugh. i go through those cycles of reading/not reading, writing/not writing and when the nots overlap i feel like it’ll never come back to me, any of it, even the reading.
but that poem… i may need to post that where i can see it every day to remind me that i shouldn’t let the nothing replace me before i’m ready!
That’s beautiful.
And I believe those fallow times that feel like a loss, or an abandoning, at the time, often turn out to be the winter that precedes the spring. They’re a necessary rest, a time of preparation.
I think we all get waylaid and lost and mired.
Glad you refound the 26.
Oh I have been in a desert lately for real! Every book I try to read disappoints me. I don’t know how or why that is happening… it must be me that is off. Too much stress? Too many changes in work/career? Not enough blogging? Something. I’m hanging on my the skin of my teeth. Can’t wait for that change in the wind!
I’m glad for you that the muck cleared. I hope for Andi that she’ll find the right wind for her sails. I vow to be grateful that the 26 are still with me in writing and reading, because, as the poem says, nothing is sure to come at some point or another!
I’m sorry about the mire around the alphabet, and glad it got washed away. Here’s hoping for more mudless days ahead, Liz. We love your words!
Powerful poem. Wow. Makes me want to inhale poetry at an even faster pace!
Yay on the alphabet finally dancing for you again. XO