It’s summer, and I have to restrain the urge to gorge myself on books.
The heat has been expansive recently, coming in waves, the humidity a wall I run smack into when walking out the door most mornings. I’ve been rising early with the light, setting an alarm for 5 am with the intention to get up and write, to think, to work in some capacity for myself. Many days are successful, others are not and I crawl back under the sheets to bargain for a few more hours of sleep. I tell myself that something good will come from this early morning vigil, waiting for the light to rise over the trees.
A stack of books has been living on one of my shelves as a seasonal to be read pile. Recently, it’s reached the point of overflowing, with stacks of paperbacks reaching the bottom of the next shelf. A good number of them are slim volumes, hovering between one hundred to two hundred pages, something easily sucked down in an afternoon. I contemplate the stack in the early morning hours, counting down obligations until I’m free to pick up the next one.
I’ve been feeding myself on the words of others, chewing on and digesting their pulp. Some days I wonder if I’m not simply a body strung together by letters and thoughts, who’s movements and actions are not some strange amalgamation of every sentence I’ve ever happened to swallow. A strange thing being book made, book fed - filled to the brim by words, before the inevitable exhale and necessary inhale of more.
I say that I’ve been getting up before dawn to write, and that’s mostly true, though more often than not it’s been writing a script for a new YouTube video or filling up pages in my journal. YouTube has more or less fallen into a predictable rhythm, the first creative one that I’ve managed to foster and keep. Working off a list of brainstormed ideas, writing a script, filming, editing, and scheduling a video to go up a week or a few days prior. Doing my best to stay focused on a forward motion by having the next video already in the works when the previous one gets published. It’s now something I feel like I can easily lean back against, a more or less steady routine of making and putting the made thing out into the world. It no longer feels daunting, flexing that part of my creative muscles - repetition has fostered confidence.
And here is where the tet-a-tet begins between my heart and my mind. Given the chance I would throw myself headlong into writing, at least I’d like to think I would. My desire to write has been roiling closer and closer to the surface recently, spurred on by what I’ve been reading, and I suppose this burgeoning sense of creative self confidence. Now that I’ve had a taste of it, proof that this is something I can do, it’s taken a good amount of willpower to not forgo every other responsibility in my life and dive in head first. Making a living as a writer isn’t something that casually happens overnight, and in all honesty I don’t know if I’m ready for it. Nor do I want to completely lose sight of everything else around me, and miss out on the magic that can be found in a present moment. And so the back and forth between future creative dreams and the honest reality of where I am in life, goes.
This patiently waiting period is both misery and joy. I can see what I want achingly on the horizon, but am simultaneously aware that I don’t currently have the creative strength and financial means to take it on and carry it forward. That will take time, patience, and practice. As a means to keep myself steady in this in-between period, I’ve been trying to take to heart the concept of turning my so-called “waiting room” into a classroom. It’s something I heard from the gardener Jessica Sowards several years ago, that’s played in the back of my mind ever since. As much as we might daydream about having a large garden that allows us to grow all of our own food; more often than not we usually have to start learning things from scratch with a pot of herbs and tomatoes on a back porch. The creative muscle must be built up over time, with habit, and with persistence - so I’m learning, so I’m practicing.
The next goal on my horizon is to build out an actual routine for writing full length pieces that aren’t YouTube scripts. Making a habit of taking fragments from journals and my phone’s notes app, and smoothing them out into fuller pieces. It’s the kneading and rolling out of self to fill a full piece that I’m having to get used to. Attempting to flesh out feelings so that an audience is able to comprehend, still feels foreign. It’s a new level of self-aware fumbling around in the dark, hoping not to trip over myself, knowing I probably will, and continuing forwards in spite of the discomfort. Trying to learn to be at peace with this uncertainty of self amidst change, and the parts of dreams that feel just out of reach. There’s a pull to the unease of this process, of not knowing where something is going, and still wanting to press forwards to see the other side.
A recent quote from my creative journal that feels appropriate to share:
Creation as an act, in whatever form you chose, is inherently uncomfortable. Finding a way to reach in and pull out coherent fragments of yourself, and then bring them together to be larger than the sum of their parts is a brutal alchemy. One that is both a pain and a pleasure, addictive in its self intoxication.
It’s what I’m chasing at the moment, it’s also what I’m shying away from. This bleeding overflow of ideas and passions that threaten to devour my life if I let them. For now, I have to learn to be content knowing that their creative vessel is in the process of being built. My form is still being molded, and in the process becoming something that can fully hold these desires to one day be delivered to a parched throat.
“Allegory of Charity” by Francisco de Zurbaran ca. 1655