Mindful Scribbling

Elizabeth Herron, Sonoma County's current Poet Laureate, said this in a recent interview: "Some of us writers, we’re led first to writing to find something in ourselves we wouldn’t find any other way.”

This is what I've been feeling, lately, when I wonder why I do it. There are other ways one could spend one's time. Part of my drive is a love of language, and words. Sounds and meanings and everything they evoke in the body and brain. And another key reason I write is my desire to live the examined life, my search for understanding what I can of the world and my place in it. Not just looking at the surface of things - not just self-reflection, but a dive into what lies underneath and beyond. Beyond myself, beyond preoccupation with past and future. Writing puts me in the moment of writing, even if the subject matter and my imagination are far from the moment. The physical act of typing words on a screen is a very present-inhabited act.