Taking Time to Write

For the past three weeks, I’ve been battling a very minor health crisis that has knocked me back on my ‘tuck-and-roll.’ Because of this I’ve been remiss on doing any ‘real’ writing, relying on the time-tested skill of doing as little a possible while I continue to recover.

It has me thinking about two things — time and of course, writing. First, let me share a thought on time:

When I was a kid, I lived on ‘Indian time.’ No watches or things like that.

It was the shadow of a tree, the position of the sun, even the buzz and pop of mercury-vapor street light’s coming on, a sense of passage, not a ‘true measurement,’ as the modern man expresses his relationship with time. To this day, much to my wife and some of my friend’s chagrin, I still ‘practice’ this sort of ‘time-keeping.’

Rarely do I carry my pocket watch and I don’t wear a wrist watch. In fact my only ‘timepiece’ is on my cellphone and I leave that behind when I go out into the wilds of nature.

It is far more relaxing than to constantly worry about the face of a clock and it’s ever busily moving hands or a set of flashing digital numbers.

Now for that other thing…

A fellow-writer, whose blog I follow, recently questioned ‘why’ he is writing. He discovered that he does it to keep himself healthy — mentally and spiritually.

Many of us begin not knowing the ‘why,’ astonishingly (and in most cases, blissfully) unaware of what we’re getting ourselves into. I began when I was nine-years-old, being lonely and feeling misunderstood, by journaling, then branching out into short stories and poetry.

Then one day, we awaken and say ‘Why do this thing?’

It generally comes at that point where we’re uncertain if we want to continue or if we plan to continue — what is the outcome we’re expecting to reach. And the majority of us say, ‘I write for me, first.’

Sounds selfish, but it isn’t. It is, instead the process of healing, sharing, integrating — and it all begins within us.

Finally, I’m a firm believer that if more people took the time to write, they’d see less struggle and conflict in their lives because they’d busily see each encounter as an opportunity to explore, research, and think about, putting into words, their experiences. And by doing so, they’d come to a better understanding of the other person, if not the world and themselves.

As for that health crisis — given the time, it is resolving itself.