Wednesday, April 14, 2021
If I am to undertake a writing project, I can only be inspired at this point in my life by focusing on the bits and pieces. The shards. Words and ideas that briefly have meaning and then float by. I can write a novel's worth of grocery lists. I can read an entire library of crossword puzzle clues. A story arc no longer than the line of a poem. To seek for more is too exhausting, too painful. To stay in the present, to be mindful, as the sages advise, is to have an attention span no longer than a moment. One blink, and the present has become the past. To plan what comes next and next and next becomes overwhelming as each next moment washes over me. This is the source of all anxiety: to care about what came before and is now lost, or what comes next with its nightmare of uncertainty. Peace lies in the here and now. What is. What is, is. If I can do nothing else, I can accept this moment, cradling it like a sparrow on my palm, not daring to breathe or blink, only cherishing the tight grip of those tiny talons, the impossible beating of its brave heart.
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