"We wake up in the morning, buy yellow cheese, and hope we have enough money to pay for it" or why I write

This week I've been reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones.  Goldberg writes because she would die if she didn't.  For her, writing is religious, awkward, present, physical.  Writing is something that you come to with your whole body, not just your imagination or mind.  When you write, you should "let your whole body touch the river you are writing about, so if you call it yellow or stupid or slow, all of you is feeling it" (59).  Throughout the book, Goldberg reminds you that "writing does writing."  The writer disappears and simply transcribes thoughts and ideas.

So much of Writing Down the Bones has to do with the necessity of writing.  Writing forces you to "deal with your whole life" (4).  It teaches you to be present, patient, vulnerable.  It teaches you to think big enough to let people eat cars.  It allows you to know everything. It lets you be the wing of the crow that left and will not return.Writing means you get to live everything twice.  You listen.  You say "we have lived; our moments are important."

This made me think about why I write.  What is it about writing that makes me want to keep writing?  I think a lot of it has to do with discovery.  For me, writing is like discovering the Niagara Falls for the first time.  I begin by walking through the woods.  At first I only notice the things that are familiar to me: the pine trees, the squirrels, the smell of rotting leaves, the crows, the brownness and the greenness and the greyness of it all.  I want to turn around, find another path that will lead to something exciting.  I take a break and I eat and I begin walking again.  Then I slowly start to hear rushing water, but I don't know where it's coming from.  It's faint and it takes me awhile to understand that I'm hearing rushing water.  And suddenly, I'm standing at the Niagara Falls, and I can't hear or think.  I begin to realize something about myself or the world or death or life or leaving.

I write about family and loss, and mostly families dealing with loss.  So when I discover something, it's not profound or life-changing or even significant.  I discover why the father has to leave at the end, or why the woman finally let's go of her dead child, or why the son gives in and lets his father believe that his mother is still alive.  But I also, and perhaps more importantly, discover the importance of birds, of dusting crumbs off a table, of misplacing the phone, of a person's yard.  For me, it's not that I would die if I didn't write.  I just wouldn't be amazed by all the small routine things we do everyday, and I really like being amazed.