by Nancy Grossman-Samuel
I can dispel words from my brain quite quickly, but not many of them are worthy of being reread even by me, no less hoisted upon the unsuspecting eyes of strangers and friends. Friends might be a little more forgiving, but strangers – well, it’s their prerogative to dislike, criticize, and demand their time back.
How do good writers do it anyway? How do they get and then allow their ideas to spill from brain to fingers to keyboard or paper and pen?
I am so jealous. I want wonderful ideas. I want to come up with poignant conversations between characters that will change the course of history – or at least my own life, but I hesitate to begin. The voices stop me. I start, erase, start and delete some more.
I move to the piano, but that’s little better, mostly I just bang along. If only I could play a Chopin Nocturne like Arthur Rubinstein or Yuja Wang I would never leave my piano. I would play all day and all night. I would annoy the too close neighbors, but then, if I were that good, they might even enjoy it. But to WRITE the nocturnes. I am in awe. I am in awe of creativity.
I go back to the other keyboard and Pandora accompanies my attempt to put my thoughts on paper but she forces me out of my chair and away from the keyboard where words are my for now enemy and encourages my body to move. So I oblige and start to dance. I piroet and leap up and down my empty hallway. One of my cats sticks its head out of a door and I sway toward him like a leaf being blown by the wind. He tilts his head; he thinks I'm good; he is enjoying it; I am enjoying it. I continue to float up and down the hallway to the strains of Telemann. I stand on toes, move my ancient limbs as the music demands. I become self aware and am glad that only my cats are here to enjoy the spectacle of me.
Creativity – it’s so important. So fulfilling. If I could just allow myself to experience and express without the judgments and feelings of frustration then at least I could entertain myself. And what is more joyful then feeling filled by the happiness of having created something that at least I enjoy – even if no one else ever will?
It’s child-like - creating just for the fun of creating. Expressing for the fun of expressing and not caring a whit for others’ opinions. When did others’ opinions become my gods and rules and guides? When did I kill my own internal guidance that tells me what I enjoy whether or not anyone else does? How do I get it back? How can I loose myself from the shackles of the god of opinion? I think there is no higher calling, nothing more important than learning to listen to the beat of my own heart and to experience and express from that.
But for now, I share the ramblings of a heart and brain beginning to break free.
Go for it, girl. Break out and break free. This is the struggle that all writers, actually all artists, struggle with. Just read a piece by John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion's late writer/husband, in which he talks about the very same thing, that daily struggle to overcome the doubts, to face the blank page,to have faith that something will emerge. Your struggle is my struggle, too. I hear you. Let's do it. Let's break free.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about having fun. Dance and play piano and write with abandon! Who cares what anyone thinks?
ReplyDeleteAll I can do is echo Susan and Liz! We pay too much attention to the voice of the inner critic, and too little attention to the joy of just doing something, or bringing something into the world that wasn't there before.
ReplyDelete"I made it; I like it. If you also like it, great! If you don't, that's OK too." Wouldn't it be super to have that level of mental health? :)