Distracted, but Writing Anyway

Writing is the way I process things.  It's how I learn and how I figure out what I really know.

Writing is nourishment.  It feeds my soul.  It clears my head.  It energizes me.

Writing is spiritual practice.  It makes me focus on what is really important, on what I need to do and understand to continue on my spiritual journey.

But lately, I've been distracted.  I've still been writing.  I write every morning.  But it's been more brain dump that exploration.  More to-do list than insight.

The kind of writing I really need to do, what I crave right now, is hard to do when time is limited, or I'm feeling anxious and stressed, or when there are other big emotional issues (good and bad) to deal with.

My 10 days of tai chi workshop and travel, immediately followed by a day of MMTA convention presentation and performance kept me super focused on the present.  Those activities used all my brain power and energy, and all the other stuff in my life took a back seat.  Once I got home, reality hit me hard.  There was no escape from the massive to do list and the anxiety and stress related to money and my work situations.  I wanted to write.  I needed to write.  But my brain just couldn't get there.

Last week I couldn't even find words to express how I felt about what had happened in Charleston. Once again, music came through to give me some outlet.  (If you like the song, the link to the PDF of the sheet music is in the YouTube comments.)



But all I could do was listen, and read, and mourn.  I couldn't write.

Today is my day off.  I have a huge list of writing projects I wanted to tackle.  But I slept in and then checked Facebook before jumping into my writing.  And once again, I'm distracted, but this time by love, joy, and celebration.  I doubt I'll get as much writing done today as I had hoped, but starting with this post, I am doing something.  And that's good.

This weekend, I process, feed my soul, and do some deep spiritual work. Some of it may be shared. Some might end up filed away under the bed. Distracted or not, the time for writing is now.