Ashes

Listening to Iron&Wine makes me feel like napping and crying, writing, drinking and creating all at the same time.

It also makes me think of my old boss at Mi Famiglia, Kyle, who used to put on Iron&Wine Pandora every Thursday night.

This alternately makes me miss the Spinach Chicken pizza -sub creamy garlic and add pepperoncinis- in an extremely unholy manner.

Funnily enough, listening to Iron&Wine also mostly just makes me angry that I'm not listening to Bon Iver.

Yeah, internal artist jealousy.  It happens.

Lovers, we have a problem.

I'm not writing as much as I should be writing.

I try not to think about it.  That makes it worse.

There is so much crap bouncing around in my thick, lethargic brain that I've completely given up.  The worst part is I'm over halfway through editing the first five chapters of Tulips.  I've only got two more chapters to edit before I can finally just clear the space and finish the damn book.

I'm so close.

But I can't do it.  This environment is extremely healthy for my soul, and my restoration, and my self-worth.

This environment is completely hostile for my writing.

And I'm absolutely split down the middle about which is more important to me.

All I can wrap my head around is the seasonal flight patterns of Puffins, the lifespans of sea anemones, how many more antique oyster forks need to be polished at work, Binocular inventories, imported tablecloth folding patterns, grocery lists, account balancing, gas budgets, Bible Study requirements and just how long I have been waiting to learn how to surf and how I'm still waiting for someone to teach me.

There's no room for creativity.

I haven't even been able to finish a single book this summer.

Writing needs to be a bigger priority in my life- I just never know how to make it one.

Life seems out of control, I don't have time to process all the good and the beautiful and the breath-taking, and the spontaneous and the bad and the heart-breaking and the confusing and the heart-pounding, and it's all so wonderful and exhilarating, and all so stunting to my discipline.

I feel at my wits' end sometimes.

And then I get texts like this from my soul sister-writer-friend-guru-guide-confidant  extroardinaire and then I don't feel so bad about my life.

"Spend it all.  Shoot it, play it, lose it all, right away, every time.  Do not hoard what seems good for a later place... Give it, give it all, give it now.  The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now.  Something more will arise for later, something better.  These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water.  Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive.  Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes."
-Annie Dillard, The Writing Life.

"Something more will arise for later, something better."

This summer was given to me to learn and to love and to grow and to expand my world so that I can prepare for discipline in the future.

I may not be writing 1,000 words every day.  I may not reach my January 2014 deadline for Tulips.  But I'm changing the way I see the world every single day, and that puts me closer and closer to my own writing life.

It's a hard lesson to swallow, patience, but it's powerful.

Be gentle with the soul, lovers.

"Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes."

Even time can be given freely and abundantly.  I don't want to lose my time.

I don't want my hours to turn to ashes.

And so, I begin again, quiet this time.  Ready to learn.  Ready to be filled.