On Writing Every Day

... the white flowers are dogwood tree branches ...
... the purples flowers are wild lupins ...

Ria tells me I should be writing every day.

 “But when would be, that hour in the day?” I ask her.

To me every job seems more important to get done that the following job: the pure love of writing.

She told me that once Toni Morrison gave herself this question: which things in life would you really feel a loss about if you had to give them up.

Morrison found that for her, writing would be that loss and so she stopped her day job and began writing.

And thus Blue Eyes came to be.

A part of me understands that loss.

I think about writing when I have the garden tools in my hands, when I am doing dishes, when I am preparing food, even when I am waking up in the morning.

I laugh at myself and think, “Do I have to write so that I know I exist?”

I can’t think of any other reason.

... Ria brought me a new vase as a gift ...

I told Ria that there is one thing harder than writing.

That is, finding someone who will read what you have written.

She shakes her head in disbelief – I am guessing that the disbelief is how there can be so much written material available that we have become overwhelmed with where to even start reading.

Just backing up, it is still hard to find time to write, even with an audience.

The morning hours are sacred hours in the summer.

They are the long cool hours when I can work on my yard.

Later in the day when the sun is high, I can feel sweat dripping down my forehead and running off of my nose.

wild orange honeysuckle
lupins
buttercups
other unnamed white and yellow flowers

I don’t mind it when I am on all fours.

Then the sweat just drops directly off of my forehead and into the soil.

As an aside, I wonder if the earth knows this is just sweat and not some woman’s tears.

I don’t like having salty sweat roll down my forehead and into my eyes.

I think I found a motion yesterday where I can interrupt that sweat and flick it off of my nose without so much as having to raise my hand to my face.

Just a quick sharp, shake.

I must not have done much sweat-work in the world to have arrived at this idea so late in life.

Arta