Finding my road...

At present, I'm having a hard time finding my way to Stone House Lane. Road construction crews have torn up the asphault, sheared twenty meters of trees from each side of the road, and removed all the road signs. They'll be straightening out the curves, adding shoulders, and laying new asphault. In the meantime, all roads look the same. I'd grown dependent on signs and markers that no longer exist. I feel like I'm in la-la land.

And I couldn't be more pleased. I'm having to learn to navigate by feel. I'm forced to look for new signs, new ways of seeing, and new information. If I'm spending too much time looking for old ones, I'll miss my road.

It's scary, doing it this way. I'd conditioned myself to believe that I needed to know where I was going, have directions for getting there, and travel the straightest route possible. The ego-thing that lives in my head -- the one that would kill me if it didn't need me for transportation -- is always droning on and on about failure, poverty, degregation and the like. For a time it had me convinced that wrong turns mean lost time and fuel -- perhaps also frostbite, starvation, suffering and death. Worse, people might laugh at me.

In the past, therefore, so much of my energy was tied up scanning the horizon for road signs and anticipating the next turn that I couldn't see the road right in front of me.

Let your story happen. It already is. You're not at the wheel. Your Creator is. You might as well relax, stop being a backseat driver, and enjoy the ride. You'll know the road when it shows up. It will be right there, in front of you.

We are what we read

One other thing Dillard says: The writer "is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know." I guess that explains why I'm reading David Sedaris. Anyone fearless enough to write about getting crabs from thrift store jeans is playing the edges of the court and letting joy be the power behind his play. You? What are you reading and learning?

Do you want to learn what you think? Start writing.

Do you still think you have too much to learn about the craft of writing before you start figuring out your story? Are you spending more time at the store picking out your notebook than writing in it? Are you waiting for your teacher to show up, the one who will show you how to begin? I do this too. So who will teach us to write? Who will teach us how to begin? "The page," says Annie Dillard, "the page, that eternal blankness...which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act." She said more, but I stopped reading so that I could start asserting my right to ruin a page. Question: Why are you here with me, now? Exactly how bad do you want to find freedom?

Change of perspective

Let's stay with the theme of changing perception. Today, if you're still stuck, maybe try taking something that you've already written and write it from a new perspective. For example, if you once wrote about how you walked out of your marriage because you couldn't stand your husband's feet -- it was like they had miniature horses in them that snorted and farted every time he took a step -- try rewriting it from his perspective. See if anything shakes loose.

This calls for careful reflection.

Dragonflies

I was going to suggest a snappy and sassy writing assignment. But funerals are going around.

So maybe, if you're stuck today, you could write about something that grabbed the axle of your mind and jerked it out of its standard rut of expectation and taking-for-grantedness.

Like, have you ever looked closely at a dragonfly? I hadn't. Then last week I found one sitting on the front seat of my car, waiting, as if it wanted to get to soccer practice. Except it was dead. When I picked it up, one of the wings broke off. I looked at it.

I had expected geometry, symmetry, and precision. I don't know. Something like what an aerospace engineer might put together for REI's kite division. Not something produced by a six-year-old having her first go with a ball-point pen. God's design for flight. Humm. The amber dye must have been cheap: It produced coloring unevenly, the way coffee dries on the bottom of a white cup.

It scared me. Too much right now seems aimless and accidental, like that wing. I pondered that for a while. Then I saw it. If you stack that wing directly on top of another, you'll find the meticulous, miraculous message. The divine design. You should look for yourself.

Or look for your own thing. But write about it, please.

Erstwhile

Okay. Maybe Dolores didn't pan out and you're still stuck. Try this. Recall a moment when you had learned a new word and muscled it into a conversation. Write a scene about that. I know you've done it. I have. I spent four months of graduate school trying to work "limn" into every conversation. Someone else I know used "erstwhile," but got the definition wrong. He thought it meant esteemed. He set off a scandal at work by going around talking about his "erstwhile colleague" in the finance department.

whirligigs and knitnoise

If you're stuck today hearing your story, maybe you could write about a woman named Dolores. Maybe Dolores had a husband who was a professor with important friends, so she used to give him the arm rest at the movie theater and hold the popcorn, too. He's dead now. She still won't claim the arm rest. But when her friends are outside each morning, watering their phlox and listening for the nuthatches, she sits at her kitchen table, dictionary open, looking for new words. She loves new words. Like slash and antimacassar, whirligigs and knit noise. Words. Beautiful words.

Do you know anyone like this?