Would-Be Writer’s Dogged Journey to the Chasm—by Judith Lavezzi

Disguised as a writer’s journey, a sabbatical from life, I am currently out of the country, avoiding commitment to the craft that brought me to this hidey-hole of an AirBnB. I am anchored here by my goal to retreat deliberately into the books I have written, but never edited, never published.  The lurking question is “But why?” Why am I running toward what I greatly desire, and simultaneously avoiding the disciplined work of creative pruning?

Could it be because I avoid failing, finding myself yet again poorer and less talented than I hoped I would be? Is it the breast cancer that turned out to be a transient event, but which heralded a clanging bell that vibrated with the message to “pay attention”? Or could it be that last birthday, when meditatively opening up my senses to the universe I clearly heard “clean up your life and clean out your closets.”  Spiritually practical advice indeed, that reminds me that I do not have forever, and if I really intended to write and publish three somewhat separate endeavors, I’d best be about it. Life is uncertain.

The tabletop is covered with vinyl sunflowers, the window to the outside draped with ten-foot-long lovely sheer panels, softly rippling in the afternoon breeze. And here I sit, “checking in,” finding rabbit holes to throw myself into, listening to a clock on the wall,  registering each available second. Not editing, not writing, but absorbed in the meaning of things.

I have over the years gained some confidence in many things, sought experiences new and strange, done some traveling, made some mistakes. Could it be that underneath this wayfaring, this desire for adventure and experience, I have been driven by fear of finding myself a simple fool? It is possible to hide myself, to cloak and mantle me from criticism or even disclosure? Therefore I write, to say in words what I avoid in life, the discovery of my own inner dishonesty and cowardice. <Long exaggerated sigh of permissiveness right here.>

This week begins today, and with it I begin to open the monsters that lie lurking under the bed as well as in the closet. My intentions are out and clear. My duplicity set aside, I practice being the person I wish I were, the person I desire to be, the brave and confident scribe to a less valiant author. I will pretend to be my sister, the bold and audacious.

Perhaps one or two of the readers of this small essay with find resonance and decide that they too might find redemption within the small white page. They might also press on, and decide that today we can write, that today we can be clear about who we are, that today we can locate sufficient humility to make mistakes, knowing that mistakes alone do not define us. Effort and persistence, one day at a time, determine the result. Today, I am willing to be brave.

Or maybe I should go shopping.

[Image by Image by Betidraws from Pixabay]

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Judith Lavezzi is what might be kindly called a mature writer.  Her journey followed a misspent longish youth, and an often delayed adulthood. Drawn to imagination and reading, she has often wondered what the heck the grownups were to supposed actually “do.” Also dragged along with her were a number of children, four, to be precise, who have been the teachers, the touchstones, and the raison d’etre for that existence. She acquired two more children, now adults, through the expediency of marrying their father. Writing, once began, has taken a long time to flourish, but embodies the joy of seeing the world through characters and their ideas, sometimes quite different from her own, Family is at the center of these stories, as it is the center of hers, although family is a  broad and generous term for those who come by choice as well as birth, and remain in community together.