put your opposables away

"Not only must I summon the courage to be a bad writer – I must dare" -- Susan Sontag

YES!

I am concerned that my writing stays shallow. the last year or so. warning light, flash, blink-blink. bell softly clanging in my noggin. I am afraid. am clearly not willingly looking, breath held. a sure sign of avoidance. nondisclosure. often it relates to my livelihood. when I avoid the words that impact my livelihood, my being, when I fail to unpack them, scratching them pen to page, thumbing them out post after post, dang if they don't come out all sideways and wrong.

historical life moves revolved around following. my own moves are rare. coming only when enough pain is applied. movement the only relief. it is an odd laziness. yet if you know my academic and art practice, I am clearly not lazy. yet, I feel lazy and leaden as needed change encroaches. it encroaches and is banging and yammering at my door, whispering its call through the cracks where the light slivers penetrate. I become lethargic and deep sadness overwhelms. I fixate on the unfixables, the closed doors, the stifled air, instead of making the adjustments to moving into the could bes, the doables, throwing open the door to the wind. I am terrified of self sabotage. and the writing skims the surface filled with its avoidances and closedness. how do I swing my step, the door, my body, my energy, beyond the lethargy of sadness and unfixables? past the threshold? step into the wind? how do I apply that energy to tap my strengths, get going? opening to the not yets? how do I not be afraid that I'll ruin my tomorrows by my holdings of today? find breath? I really dislike fear and the way it courses through my body, its weight is tremendously suffocating. I become so small. airless. my chest barely rises before it falls. it seems once again I find myself internally kicking and screaming through the threshold of change. I do want change.

now kathy. outside to work on my today so I can get to tomorrow. stitch stitch the next several weeks will be more making. yes. i do love to make. outside with you. now. put your opposables and phone away. ok.

and yes for me to step into the wind to requires me to "summon the courage to be a bad writer – I must dare."