The TSP Book Club: Taking Heart

 She lied.
It turns out we ARE supposed to read these morning pages.
Well, I’d love to see her try and read mine,
paltry though they may be.
I can’t read them – that’s how bad my handwriting truly is.
We’re talking big-time scribbling here.
Big-Time.
 
Well . . . I can read . . . a little.

And, as much as it pains me to admit this,
I think she just might be onto something 
with these dang pages. 
I’m still not very faithful about it.
I am keenly aware that 
the Rebellious Resistor is still around.
But . . .
what I can decipher is just the teensiest bit interesting.
It does appear that I have successfully vented on occasion.
And I do see some recurring ideas/insights/areas of concern:
I am distracted by my mother’s health;
I am distracted by the number of interruptions 
made by people that I care about a great deal;
I am laden with guilt simply because
I’m trying to listen to that Voice that moves me to take fingers to keyboard and WRITE. 
 
A lot of issues from long ago are rising 
and in not very pretty ways.
Things I thought I had already worked through
are making their presence known with a vengeance.
 It’s beginning to feel like an epic battle some days:
I struggle to learn more about how to get these words,
these words that are wrestling within my spirit,
 to flow down my arms and out my fingertips.
And as I struggle, I find old enemies,
recently revived. 
 
Enemies like these:
assuming personal responsibility 
for the happiness of others;
carrying personal guilt whenever
said others are unhappy;
fighting the call of God (and muse?) 
to stillness and solitude;
choosing to do almost anything but what I say I want to do;
resorting to ‘loud’ and nasty name-calling inside my head,
about 95% of which is aimed directly at . . . me.
So.
I am slowly working through the tasks listed at the end of chapter 9, the one titled:
“Recovering a Sense of Compassion.” 

I’d like to tell you that I’m doing them with enthusiasm.
I’d like to tell you that I’m doing them with alacrity.

But I can’t do that.

Instead, I can tell you that I am,
at this moment,
attempting to do these two things with 
sincerity and honesty:
Take Stock.
and
Take Heart. 

And I’m also trying to give myself a little bit of credit.
Maybe, if I do that,
that stubborn ol’ Resistor will relent a bit.
I remain ever hopeful.
Only one rose blooming in my yard this week,
but it was a doozy.
I’m sure there’s an application there somewhere.

Adding this to the list over at TweetSpeak Poetry as we’re working our way through Julia Cameron’s, “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.”
Next week we finish – if I survive that long! – and do THREE chapters.
I have yet to begin. Oy vey.


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Comments

  1. Sometimes ONE BLOOMING ROSE is all you need when it’s a doozy! And it sure is!  I can relate to your words about the past popping back up, about the distractions, and I have to admit ‘those dang pages’ are becoming necessary.  Hmmm.  I think she warned that this could happen.  And I like to see that you are giving yourself credit.  These dang pages are a commitment, and you are a chapter ahead of me, but I give myself credit for being far enough along to only be one chapter behind!  And so all I can assume is that chapter 9 is where we are told to read our pages. Gulp and uh oh.  Sigh.  I had a visitor this morning as I was writing a letter to myself (which made me think of your letter to your little self and I thought better late than never and better older than also never).  So, my visitor – he was a deer one.   

  2. Diana, I loved this.  So candid.  Real.  And isn’t that life in all its blessed messiness?  Just when we think we understand something, that know how it all works, someone pulls a pinion out and we start anew:  unravel, uncover, discover, reach higher, go deeper, figure it all out again.  Part of the process, part of the destination somehow all wrapped up in one. 

    I appreciate your honesty and that big, beautiful rose blooming in profusion in your yard — perhaps a reminder of your big, beautiful heart blooming in profusion through these words.  🙂

  3. So true, Donna, so true. Thanks for faithfully checking in with me each week – I appreciate it!

  4. Thank you, Cindee – and yes, indeed, that is life in all its ‘blessed messiness.’ Love that phrase!

  5. That personal responsibility and personal guilt thing. Yeah, I get that. I really do.