Last Saturday I woke
up early, basking in the delicious joy that comes from having absolutely no
plans. The
house was empty, silent. I did my meditation, my oil pulling,
brushed my teeth and headed to the park with just my keys, a pen and a
notebook. There was a gentle breeze flirting with my ponytail and the trill of
cockatoos squabbling over territory. The light was muted, the day still
withholding its secrets. I sat cross-legged in the dewy grass and watched the
eager dogs and their less-eager owners. I listened to the water slapping the
seawall and the bitter sigh of running shoes doing time. I felt wider than my
skin, as if the emotional rigours and quenchless demands of the past week had been experienced by someone else. I opened my notebook and wrote. Not work pitches nor
blog posts nor notes-to-self, but a fictional short story that has been gnawing
at my imagination for weeks, urging me to sit still long enough to bring it to
life. What I wrote was neither good nor clever, nor even finished. But, as with
any meaningful endeavour, the product matters less than the process. Whenever I
am writing something that doesn’t have a deadline, prescribed format or
specified word count, I am where I am supposed to be. My soul rises up and the
would-have-should-have-could-have in my brain falls away. This is what I do to
feel like me. To feel right.
For me, writing is
coming back home. I know with absolute certainty that telling stories and
playing with words are what I am here to do. I hope you have something that
brings you back into alignment with your soul, too, and I hope you value
yourself enough to make that a priority.
What are you doing
with your time that could possibly matter more?