Naked

I write at my little desk in the attic. Amongst a mess of papers in the home-office. Sprawled in a white peeling Adirondack chair on the farmer’s porch.

Occasionally, when I need background noise to quiet my mind, I write at a restaurant bar. I’m almost always approached by strangers when I write in public places. There is a curiosity or wonder about what I’m journaling and recording.

Sometimes these interruptions are annoying. Other times they lead to wonderful conversations and opportunities to learn.

I’m about a quarter of the way into four books; I read them concurrently. Some as reference tools, a few others as self-help techniques. In Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones she imparts the advice: Trust in love and it will take you where you want to go.

Maybe, in exploring what it is you love to do it’s more along the lines of: Trust in yourself and you will get there.

I watch my daughter as she prances around the kitchen in her blue underwear. She’s round and tan and smooth. Her three year old pot belly juts over her legs. She’s got a criss-cross of tan lines on her shoulder blades. A scraped knee. Bug bites. A tangled nest of black curls bouncing across her forehead.

She sways and sings and dances.

Often, she will choose not to wear underwear as she boogies. She’s naked and free-spirited.

As we age, a stigma is attached to the naked body. There is a vulnerability to it. A shame, even.

In writing, we allow ourselves to get naked. But still, like showing your body for the first time, there is a fear of judgment. And yet to be a truly great writer, you need to overcome fear of what someone will think of your thoughts in the same way that, to be secure with your physicality, you need to abandon the fear of being evaluated on your flaws.

If, as I write or process, I stumble upon something flawed, raw or frightening, I embrace it.

There’s great value in chasing what it is about you that frightens you most. It’s a hub of buzzing vibrating energy.

And when you figure it out?

Take pleasure in the cool waters of calm that follow.

Recently, I sat down with a friend in the publishing business. He had just finished writing a book. I asked him how he went about setting a center to his creation.

He advised me to focus on the skeleton and later fill in the flesh.

Those words wrap around my head like a toy train on a restaurant wall: Write the skeleton. Fill the flesh.

Another friend sat down with me to discuss my need, my ache, to make writing my craft.

He smacked me with the explanation that it already is. Told me to slow down and look both ways. To take time and breathe.

Write the skeleton; fill the flesh. Take time; take breath.

When I write, one of my biggest goals is to take in the sentiment that what I produce is not all going to be good. Singers warm their voices. Runners stretch their legs. A writer limbers the mind with writing exercise.

I don’t always want to practice. I don’t always want to run. But, I force myself to. And sometimes the practice is difficult. The words don’t come smoothly. I run my hand across the page and write whatever comes to mind. I force my sneakers to push the ground even if I don’t much feel like doing it.

In the repetition and the practice though, comes a sweet sizzle.

A plume of smoke that starts small and curls upward.

A signal.

An idea in a breath.

The crackle of a first thought.

In repetition there is freedom because the stake is not just on one time. I am not lacing up my shoes to run the fastest 5K. I am not sitting at my notebook to write the next great poem.

But then, the road disappears.

The paper falls away.

And there is just me:

Open.

Truthful.

Breathing.

The energy captures me and my hand starts flying across the page. I don’t think about  handwriting, punctuation or spelling errors. I’ll get to those later, in the editing phase. My mind blanks and I am taken over. I just let the thoughts come out.

The etymology of the word inspiration is: “the immediate influence of G-d.”

From Old French the history is: “Inhaling; breathing in”.

The ability to breathe in and write down the moment pulls a honking old transfer switch attached directly to a rainbow.

Bam!

The world is in color.

Embrace it.