Writing. 

I’ve been so inspired lately. 

I’ve gotten a lot done and spend the days improving and editing.

           Not.

I’ve been editing my house and making it pretty because when it’s pretty I want to keep it clean. 

And I just keep having ideas lately. 

Tis the season and time of my life apparently for decluttering heaps, adding blank spaces, and scouring thrift stores for a variety of items as I turn our house more homey and pretty to me. Picture frames, doormats, flowers, vases, flower pots, plates. General reorganizing, rearranging, rethinking, repurposing, and reimagining. 

Life’s been full and fun and is gradually turning prettier. 

But I’ve been quieter here. I could blame my flurry of house prettying activity on nesting come early. Or writer’s block. Or energy come from a weekend away. But I’ll take it and I’m going with the flow a little since it’s fun to be creative in a different way. 

And I am enjoying my house a little more.

           Writing.

It is worth it to write. 

But it’s a fight sometimes. 

Sometimes it seems so selfcentered. Sit here and wax long about your own thoughts. It’s hard to start even.What difference does it make. Can you do something that benefits your family in a more conspicuous manner. That pile of laundry isn’t going to fold itself. But life will go on without my words right now.

The self talk can be brutal some days, but it’s worth it, right? 

We pull the words together and feel out the pieces of our identity . We find ourselves in the characters and spaces. We find pieces of light we couldn’t see before. These little truths we would never know if we didn’t write. 

It’s worth it. 

We can do it. 

Fight through the haze that asks for sleep and chocolate and netflix and realize it’s a call for clarity not one more factor motivating numbing from the world. 

We write to know and to be who we are and what we believe. 

It gives us a process to pursue the things God might have us finding in our lives. 

We can become better people. By the grace of God.

            Not.

Sometimes I feel like I read as way to escape writing. 

There is a certain luxury to resting in someone else’s words. 

But then sometimes we get caught and stuck. Absorbing and consuming without remembering and enjoying along the way.

          Writing.

These words help us find ourselves and each other too. 

These words meld compassion with community. 

When we read the words of others we can care or not and weigh them with an opinion of our own, but also a lightness as we consider others’ in the same light we do our own. Shaping and changing as we grow and learn.. 

We are free to know, or not, the story of another. 

Balance to our little niche of belief as we share more fullness with each other. 

            Not

But then there’s also the escape route. Consuming other writing in order to avoid the ache we create within ourselves when we lay it aside too long. Reading someone else’s thoughts is so much easier than processing  your own and solidly taking your own pursuits in hand.       

But the words we lock up may follow us around forever in their lack of resolution and our lives may seem less uprooted and less painful. 

If we ignore the depths and skim the surface waters of our  reality we might glean only just enough to see our own reflections, but often never more. 

            Writing.

Because sometimes silence happens and the house gets beautiful, but sometimes silence happens when I don’t know what to say and need to take the time to find out the why and how and what.

So writing happens. 

And words flow. 

And things change gradually and thoughtfully.

Even if it’s only for yourself. 

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Thoughts?

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Related and lovely by Rachel Toalson: How Do I Do It All As a Writer and a Mother? I Don’t.
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