I wrote a draft of a new story this year. The central concept is resiliency. It is a word in short supply for children at the beginning of being. The pandemic has effected age groups in very different ways. I hear the children. I feel the loss.
I listen to Madeleine L'Engle--"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children."
These are the bread crumbs of life I am following back to home.
The past year, one most never saw coming, even as a possibility, is now more or less gone. The starting and stopping as unique as the number of people on earth. We learned feelings that are incongruous with life before. In finding life after, I'm lining up my feelings with my creative process to the work of writing. I used to find flow, the somewhat mysterious creative mindset where thoughts focused and tumbled along in stories revealing connections, rather easily. All seems to need a reinvention.
Walking in nature is beginning to return to a normal feeling, and part of my process. Not a stress-filled endeavor into places that were once safe, but in the past year bordered on freakishly terrifying trips into the twilight zone. It turns out that safety is key to fostering creativity. Being safe allows the mind to be free to find thoughts that might be molded into story. Safety is in transition. New stories are about internalizing resiliency.
Spring,
summer,
fall drifted--and
disappeared.
A winter of dreams
followed.
A year is gone.