Reading and Writing

It’s really late to be writing my morning pages. I’ve read and read this morning. It is the kind of reading which makes you want to write. I can’t walk away from this keyboard now after having read these wonderful pieces. I read about Hillary Mantel. A face book page called Writers shared a feature article about her. About how crazy and lovable, how sensitive and how cold. The article was written in the www.newstatesman.com. On the outside a quiet lovable, interested lady. On the inside a driving force of real and surreal ideas cramming her brain to be let out. Her real life sufferings forming and shaping who she is and driving her imagination. I loved the article. I felt as though I had been to her apartment to meet her and had found in her a kindred spirit, reciprocated by her. I couldn’t pull my eyes from the page and read more quickly so to be finished in time to wake up Chloe. Alas, I let Chloe sleep in but finished reading the story. Inspired I kept scrolling and found an article by Lev Grossman, How Fatherhood Ruined His Life Plan and made him the Writer He is Today. Excerpted from “Daughter Pressure” by Lev Grossman. Several things he said resonated clearly with me. Experiences from his childhood and the crumbling of the shell he had grown around himself as a result, due to his relationship with his brand new daughter. It was a wonderful read and completely inspiring. I just can’t walk away from my morning pages now. So even if it is nearly nine o’clock in the morning and today has not only school in it, but also a couple of loads of laundry, clothes to put away and some to iron first, bread to bake and all the usual cleaning up and straightening including an overall vacuuming ending with home made pizza and a movie, morning pages it is. I’m actually really quite good at making up time. I’ve had a lot of practice due to an insufferable capability for procrastination. I’m normally slow and methodical and then click, boom, I’m freaking everybody out because I just got focused and aim to accomplish a ton in the remaining time or bust. I’m really feeling not too bad. My mind seems to be doing the best lately. I noticed on my morning walk around the chicken coops and subsequent search for the dog that my mind is not rebelling at being up at the crack of dawn any more. I was recalling how I wouldn’t bring the dog with me because, of course, she would wander off and have things of her own to do. It would irritate me no end to have to make my body walk the extra steps to go and find her. It’s not like I could holler for her either. My voice didn’t use to work in the mornings. She wouldn’t listen if I did holler. Those memories come from a time when neither my body nor my mind felt well. Now at least my mind feels well and I’m bringing my body along and it is also liking the experience very much. I am able to talk to the chickens and the ducks. The roosters stop their crowing to listen to my soothing talk. My voice isn’t scary to them in the mornings any more. I remember opening the coop door once as they came out in a rush, happy to be let out into a new day and saying “Good morning” in my very bad morning voice. Suddenly they all stopped and ran back in. I was sorry I had tried to greet them. But now my voice is awake, soft and comforting in the mornings and I can talk to them without fear of frightening them back into the coop. I’m actually enjoying my morning stroll even the part where I go looking for the dog. I feel refreshed and ready for the day when I get back. Sometimes I have finished my writing sometimes I still have more writing to do. Morning pages were supposed to be unedited, quickly written, badly spelled, enlightening pieces designed to wake one up. I am having trouble writing that way. I recognize errors as they happen and I can’t seem to move on without going back and correcting them. I keep reading what I’m writing so I have to make adjustments. Really it is turning out to be more of an exercise in writing. I also have a hard time writing anything which may be negative about my life, even my over-eating habit is difficult to talk about in a negative way. I think it’s best to focus on stuff that is great. I do love what I cook. I love what I’ve grown in the garden and that I’ve figured out a way to cook it. I end up loving it and eating too much of it. I also can’t bear to throw it away, since I grew it and cooked it and all that is a lot of work. I love that I get to home-school our daughter and that we both love to write. I’m often listening to the keys on the other computer clacking away. Every once in awhile I hear satisfied or happy noises coming from her direction when she is writing. Like she just wrote something really good and is enjoying it. I love that she uses big words in her writing and nothing she writes makes any sense. I love that I get to garden and that I have a greenhouse now and a cold-frame and plants all around which are either pretty or producing food or both. I do like the dirt, I don’t care for spiders and grasshoppers. There are plenty of hard work aspects to gardening and home-schooling but writing, even though it can at time exhaust one, feels only like play. I love that about writing.  

Written by Elizabeth Williams, writing exercise, morning pages.
1,000 words.