On Writing (and Learning)

5 things that kept on going

1. Some writings come easy, as if the words are just walking through and all I need do is hold open the gate. And some are resistant or tender and need to be coaxed and soothed all along the way. Some take a lot of time and effort as I question the truth of every line and need to spend time with it to see - Does it mean what I think it means? Is it clear outside of my own head and heart and body? I think I can tell when I read back which pieces took weeks vs minutes. All valuable processes, but there's a certain quality, a maybe still present energy of hesitancy to the ones I've had to work hard for.

2. My writing in online spaces has mostly been about my practices and growth and therefore a process of learning in public. There is a way I approach a blend of privacy and intimacy here that is different than the completely sheltered space of my journal. Writing here becomes part of a conversation whether or not you engage directly with it. (When you do engage, you become part of the learning, as maybe I am part of yours.) The process of writing is slow enough that I can be more conscious and clear in my language than I would in a verbal conversation where my brain sometimes cannot keep pace with my mouth or vice versa. And it becomes part of the practice of refining my spoken language to more accurately reflect the world I am living in and the one I am shaping.

3. For example. I’ve been stirring on something a classmate said earlier this week (after I began writing this list and before I finished it) which might instigate a post of its own - I keep thinking about it. It’s like the smallest pebble in my shoe that I keep walking with. I might be able to wiggle it just enough with my toes that I can’t feel it at all, or I might need to get down and take off my shoe and look at the thing more closely, take it out and turn it over before leaving it on the ground. In either case, even when it leaves my awareness for some moments, it comes back - a small agitation, not enough in this case to be painful, but enough to call up associated memories of other walks with other pebbles or with no pebbles at all. I write to honor the pebble, the agitation, the discernment of whether and when to pause, and how that small stir might even create a directional shift in my walk, or my life if the agitation is great enough. I could just keep going and sometimes I do, but writing is part of how I process.

4. These writings are a way I'm in conversation with myself across time, a way my past and present selves have a space to be witnessed and honored in a particular way. This has been an unexpected way of befriending myself over the past 15 years. I know, when I am in certain states of confusion or overwhelm, that there is someone out there who understands, who has been through similar things, has felt a similar way. There is a wiser me who has left a map. My own writing, placed outside myself, makes it possible to be impacted by the value of who I am and how I see the world in the same way I am by the writings of others.

5. I am generally wiser, more well, and more aligned with myself when I am writing regularly.

6. There is an irony that among my many challenges in higher ed over the past two years is the way it has divorced me from my personal writing for long stretches of time. Time when, as part of my learning, I would usually be thinking with my pen or at a keyboard, making sense through words, questioning and integrating well beyond assigned papers and intellectual exercises. My writing has always been linked to my embodiment*. What I mean is that my writing is an expression of my lived experience and how I’m showing up in my body in the world. I am not an intellectual, my intelligence has always been more muscular**. I write about the ways my learning is in practice in my life, it is never merely theoretical. And this means there are ways my learning has been limited during this time. I have more writing (read: learning) to do about my experiences in academia, and I long for the space to do that - which also ironically may not come until after graduation.

7. I will say, for now, that I believe one of the strategies of higher ed is to keep us too exhausted and too off balance to challenge the way things are done. Ok, this one's not about writing, but also, for me it is.

8. I'm in question about how sharing my writing online may need to shift as I train as a therapist. I've already found myself holding back from posting pieces I have written during grad school. And I've felt a sense of rebellion when I do share - as well as freedom and even fortitude as the process works on me in the way that it does, as my learning expands with it’s creative expression. I know a bit about what I am rebelling against - professionalism as a project of racial capitalism for starters***. I also understand some of the concerns and potential harms of sharing personal writing without boundaries. And I know myself well enough to know that this particular type of writing (again: learning) is essential to who I am and what I offer. My writing is intrinsic to how I show up in the world, professionally and personally. And in every professional role, especially teaching and bodywork and leadership, my humanity has been the foundation of my meaningful contribution, and my writing keeps me connected to my humanity in a particular way. I'm not sure what to do with all of this yet - and for sure I need some conversation (learning!) about it beyond my own selves. If you have wisdom or are wrestling with this too I would love to hear.

* a big word with a lot of meanings

** to quote my mentor Carey Smith, “change is muscular.”

*** and here is a place where my formalized education is informing my choice of words. My writing has also functioned as a form of translation, and I feel another pebble in my shoe with adopting a shorthand, even one developed as a reflection of and intended to be a common language to explain our current social, economic, and environmental disasters. If we cannot talk to each other across these forms of language and experience, how will we learn enough from each other to walk our way out of these disasters together?