Week 3: You Can't Run Away From Yourself

When I started the daily writing journey, I didn't think there would be much mystery to solve. Yes, it would take discipline. Yes, there would be days that I didn't want to write. Yes, there would be words that would inevitably get deleted, but for now, just focus on getting them down on the page.

But on days like today, which of course is a Wednesday (when I wrote this post), I don't have the desire to write. Nor do I have anything in my mind to write. I usually can imagine a poem that needs commitment to a page. An image I saw that I found intriguing, like how my neighbors cut down a tree over a year ago and finally, the ground now looks healed.

Or how despite everything warming in Central Florida, I can still smell the cold in the air. But right now, those images don't feel compelling enough to write a poem. At least, for now. Instead, I realize how forcing myself to write every day, in turn, forces me to face myself.

Typically, I could lose myself in a story idea or the germination of a poem. That memory of a tree even beckons to me now. But rather, I now realize that I cannot run away from myself, even amidst all the words.

When I bring myself to the computer every day to write, to continue this daily writing journey, there will be days when I have nothing to discuss, nothing to explore or excavate, except myself. All the striations hidden behind ego, trauma, and the quotidian.

Every feeling you never knew how to integrate; every memory that seems to rumble within you, no matter how much time has passed, you'll find it in this place. When you must bring yourself to the page every day, faithfully, like prostration on stone steps.

Sometimes, there is nothing left to do but relinquish yourself to the words.