Every year when the summer slowly draws to a close and I find myself already in the first week of September, I ask myself, where does all the time go?
There’s something about the month of September, that like January, offers you a moment to pause and reflect on all that you’ve done with your time thus far. January holds more weight though because it not only leaves you with reflection, but also asks of you what you want to accomplish.
September reminds you that your summer is now becoming a summary of only a few words; June, July and August are casually drifting into the background.
It’s not so much about the summer being over and a new season taking reign, as it is these months of the year acting as resting points on an obstacle course to push you into thinking and doing more for the betterment of yourself.
This summer was different for me in the sense that I didn’t spend it going out to parties or bars as much as I did in the past. I wanted a clear mind to write more often and to be more productive.
As I have been spending time writing for different websites, I realize that I’ve somewhat neglected writing for my own blog, which has got me thinking about the act of writing in general.
The best way I can think to describe it at the moment is through Hemingway’s words, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Or as Elizabeth Gilbert says, “I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this. I didn’t know anyone who had ever become a writer. I had no, as they say, connections. I had no clues. I just began.”
Writing, like any other craft in life, requires a continuous effort and habitual practice. It asks you to sit in a waiting room and ever so patiently wait for your answers to come through. It begs of you to empty yourself entirely by searching in darkened alleyways and poorly lit streets to seize the parts of yourself that you’ve ignored or forgotten.
When you find those pieces, radiance hits the page; your mind becomes a runway - awaiting and departing illumination.
As I was thinking of how I haven’t wrote for my blog in awhile because it sometimes takes a long time for a glitter to spark through, I realized how so much of my life at the moment is like sitting in a waiting room.
Waiting for that flicker to emerge from somewhere. Anticipating a lingering gleam to hold up a light on the runway, leading me to discover where I should await and depart to next.
“It's like I get into a roller coaster, and sit there while it goes up and down and upside down and sometimes I get thrown out and I hit my head, but I crawl back in again and the moment I'm back in, it just keeps on going and going again...all of this, so I can find things out and then I write about the things I find out so you can find them out from me. All the bruises, all the wounds, all the bumps on the head, all the scars, just so I can take that and I can write all these things, and sometimes I say "God, I don't want to be in this roller coaster anymore." But when I think about it, if I'm not right here, then where the hell would I be? On the sidewalk? I wasn't born to stand on the sidewalk, I was born to fly around crazy in the sky!” -C. Joybell C.
