Finding A Pattern That Works for Me

I write three blogs now, labors of love, this one, one on affirmations, Envision Your Best Self Daily , and The Duck Stops Here, which is about Duck Football. None of the three are going to make me rich. Let's be honest, none of the three are going to make me a dime. But all of the experts say the secret to true success and true happiness is to find your passion and follow it. At some point I'll add a poker blog and a golf blog, and the chief benefit of all that blogging will be that I'm writing every day. Writing is life, hope, and engagement. Writing is the exercise and the discipline that gives life to my heart and mind. Oh, I have to admit, a good deal of the time I don't have a whole lot to say. But in writing you discover your voice, and the effort to dedicate and develop yourself is more than worth it. It engages me. It gives me hope, and the means to reflect and to grow. It isn't a seamless or quick process. It's something you dig out of the ground, like mining for gold. You have to move around a lot of dirt to get to the priceless stuff. You have to keep believing the priceless stuff is within you. I fervently believe it is.

I made an important discovery today, or more accurately, an important rediscovery. The best time for me to write is in the dead of the night, The dark early morning hours when the apartment is quiet and everyone is asleep. That's the time when it can't get sidetracked by the demands of the day or heat or noise or pressing obligations. It's the sacred time that isn't clogged up with anything else. This is the best time for me to write. This is when I am the most trusting and the most clear and the most earnestly committed.

I don't often want this to be the subject. It's dangerous to be writing about writing, navel contemplation to the ninth degree, holding a keyboard like the guy on the Cream of Wheat box holding a box of Cream of Wheat that has a picture of a guy holding a box of Cream of Wheat. You can get lost in paradoxes or redundancy. There's far more interesting stuff to consider.

Tonight however I needed to make a declaration. I want to write, and I want to write every day, and the best time for me to do that is in the wee hours of the morning when every thing is dead silent and the years and memories come back to me. I can make out the outlines of the shadows. I can hear the voice of God and the music in the stillness. I can't write when someone is watching me with suspicious or distrusting eyes. I can't write in chaos and clamor. I need quiet. I grew up in a chaotic house of seven children and two dysfunctional adults who were either in a frenzy of codependent ecstasy or screaming misery and nightmare violence. The quiet soothes me and takes me back to my safest place. I crave quiet and stillness. I'm terrified of meanness, sarcasm, anger and demeaning brutality. I have no stomach for hurt. There's a shame within me I'd give almost anything to avoid revisiting. Except when I'm writing. When I'm writing I'm not afraid of anything, which is why I want to do it more than anything in the world. I'm glad I got that out. I don't do it to slight anyone or ignore anyone or hurt their feelings. I do it because it's the most necessary and vital journey of my life.