#reverb 10 Day 2

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

Well, let’s see. That would be my husband, my daughter, my dogs, my house that needs to be cleaned, my dinner that needs to be cooked, my papers that need to be graded, my lessons that need to be planned, my piano that needs to be practiced, my bills that need to be paid, the classes I need to teach every day, the graduate school homework that needs to be completed…
What keeps me from writing is the busyness of life. All the little things that fill up the spaces in my day, things that need to be done, that leave no time for anything but absolute essentials. I set time aside everyday for things that I want to do, like writing—I even make “an appointment with myself” that is so often recommended—but that list of necessities seems to scream the loudest in my ears.

I used to say I could get so much work done at school if I didn’t have students every day. What a silly statement: without students there would be no work to do. More importantly, teaching is ABOUT the students. As I think about how nice it would be if I could not work a day job, or dream of having a housekeeper, or becoming a hermit so that I can do more writing, I think about what I normally write about. My writing is often journaling, blogging, writing my personal history, responding to stories or movies I have experienced, about my teaching. My writing is about life and about MY life. If I only sat in a locked room and wrote, I eventually would end up with nothing to write about. This may not be true of others, but it is true for me. Writing is a response to my experience here on Earth, and my experience is made up of the big and little things that fill my day.

Perhaps I am between a rock and a hard place. Living keeps me from writing, but writing can keep me from living. That elusive “balance” that so many search for is probably the nebulous answer. One important thing I learned in my graduate writing class is that writing is a thinking process, allowing the writer to organize and reflect on their thoughts. It is an important activity. Maybe this is not so much about what I need to eliminate as much as what I can integrate to support and lift the pieces of my existence. My daily experiences, mistakes and successes, adventures, decisions, thoughts: these need to be recorded not just for others to read but for myself to make sense of them, to reflect on the big picture, to make decisions, and to enjoy them. Writing can bring a depth to my living that otherwise does not exist.