Day Four (on four hours sleep, so forgive the blissed out mixed metaphores)

I have stepped off the edge of the planet.

Suddenly everything I have ever done grows small, but not diminutive. Where once my writing was a star I gazed upon with occasional bursts of optimistic romanticism, now it fades into glorious chaos, one among many in a Milky Way of thought. The task before me is grand and inviting. I could walk away from every sentence I have written with barely a tearful wave, or like a mother leaving her firstborn at college then turning, turning to the empty nest – a blank page. But now a new writer staring at it, changes not yet manifest but steeping, black effervescent, dark and rich like Early Grey leaves.

I am continually blown apart by the ideas before me. And when on Day One JR talked about the ethical necessity of a writer to destroy language I understand now how the destruction begins with the writers themselves, then onward to the nutriment of our ashes, then rising from the smoke of each fire we can watch the wind make new writers of us, a carousel of bottle-capped phrases and paradoxical pairings when finally, circling from the pens of nonfiction writers, we can land for a soft-padded moment, engulfed by the blessings of a finely crafted memoir or lyrical essay, and say: Yes, this piece is finished.

Today’s quote:
“Writing is not much a gift as it is a practice,” ~JB

Yesterday’s quote (since I forgot it):
“Each of these little arches has to have its own bouquet of motivation.” ~JB