a glimmer in its own right
Writing makes me notice. And noticing is magic -- It’s not about words on paper. It’s about making sense of my life.
The week after Samuel’s car accident I wrote a bit that I imagined I’d share here. After sitting on it though, I’ve decided to cut out the entire beginning of the entry I’d written.
It was a lot of making coffee and letting it get cold and putting it in the fridge for cold brew later while I paced my house. You aren’t missing out on much.
While I was writing about that experience of intermingling grief & gratitude I took some time to notice glimmers in my life.
It felt right to make myself stop and pay attention to good things when my heart was weighed down.
Because what’s the good in glimmers of magic and meaning and hope if you can’t look for and lean on them when you could really use some?
Sometimes when I’m writing, some small part of me thinks I may be wasting my time. Not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I feel like probably everything worthwhile on any subject has been said already, by other, more articulate women.
But then I remember: I’m writing for me.
I’m here, doing this, because I want to notice, because I want to see.
Writing does that. It forces me to slow down my thoughts and see my own life. I get to press pause and take things apart and look for highlights.
It’s like my thoughts are on a damn high-speed train. My daily life is slower these days, at home raising children, but my mind is running quickly; occupied with ideas, the noise of podcasts or audio books, what feels like hundreds of to-dos, and multiple conversations at a time through out the day.
Making myself slow down, or stop even… having to take some of the words out of my head and put them in front of my eyeballs… it’s like pulling the break on that high-speed train.
And all of a sudden I can see. I can see the tracks, see the train cars, I can see the direction I’m headed, I can see my surroundings. It’s no longer a thousand miles per hour, in blur.
And this is so helpful because, in general, I’m not as aware as I want to be.
My life, in beautiful ways, is…
Repetitive.
Familiar.
Comforting.
But it’s so routine it makes me sleepy, and I want to stay awake, I want to see it all. I don’t want to be asleep at the wheel.
Just because my life is full of our common, simple things, I don’t want to forget to call out or make magic in it.
And writing makes me notice.
And noticing is magic.
It’s not about words on paper.
It’s about making sense of my life.
Noticing—writing—sharpens my perspective… and, helps me reshape my perspective.
Forcing myself to write when I (think I) have nothing to say has made me dig deeper.
It forces me to stop that hurricane force and be still, to be present enough to hear my inner voice so I can get the words out.
Sometimes I think I know exactly what I’m thinking, and then I sit down to get the words in front of me, and they come out jumbled and less exact than I imagined.
I guess it’s easier to believe my thoughts are sure and sensible when I don’t do the work to really look at them.
In some ways it’s easier not to write, because writing is hard and takes time and is emotionally and mentally taxing.
But in other ways, it is so, so much easier to write than to not.
It’s like I’ve been hoarding thoughts and writing forces me to take each one out and put it out on my lawn. I have to look at it.
Where did this thought come from? How long have I owned it? Do I still want it to be mine?
I’m allowed to get rid of some of these [thoughts]. I’m allowed to realize some of the things here were dropped off by others and are unwelcome. I’m allowed to let go of the things that were right for previous versions of me, but don’t fit here anymore.
Writing takes so much energy, just like when you’re decluttering a home that’s been collecting too many things for too many years, but it also gives me freedom and room to breathe in this newly roomy house with an organized silverware drawer.
So here it is: writing. That’s a glimmer I decided to notice, to look at, to sit with for a few minutes.
It feels beautiful and important and appropriate that there is meaning, hope, and magic in writing itself— the vehicle that helps me notice & savor the glimmers in my own life is a glimmer in its own right.