January 25, 2011
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Digging
Some days my zest for digging is stronger than other days. By digging, I mean searching, delving, reaching backward, downward, inward for what is there to be worded. I know there is so much there, so many moments of this life to be described and preserved. For what, or whom, I’m not sure. But I feel a need to preserve it, nonetheless.
Sometimes I look back over old writings and think, “Wow. I was so in the groove when I wrote that. Why can’t I be in that groove all the time?” But at the same time I know “the groove” ebbs and flows like most things in life.
I find that digging is easier, more readily on my mind and within my capability, when I am reading Natalie Goldberg or Julia Cameron. And there are others, too. Peter Stillman, F.P. Thomas, Bernard Selling. They all inspire me to push forward, write through beyond the surface, beyond even the first two or three layers that present themselves. Pushing past that seems almost a foreign concept, but I think I’ve gone to that depth before. Probably on one of those occasions that produced the writing I look back upon and marvel at “the groove”.
