Liz, I need more practice

I have a new friend. And we have, immediately upon meeting, committed to complete and utter honesty; and that we will - at all costs - hold up a severely honest mirror to each other.

This is what she texted me last week, possibly hours after meeting, about this blog:

"You're right, the bio is interesting and the blog itself sleep-inducing. PS: "eternal sunshine of a contented soul" should be made into the title of a nostalgic novel or a black and white romance thriller. Hahaha." 

I chuckled my head off. I also remembered a truly inspiring piece - http://thewritepractice.com/how-to-catch-more-life-in-your-writing/

  - I'd read earlier in the year on Joe Bunting's exceptional The Write Practice blog, of which I'm going to include a large chunk of, right here. It begins: 

The poet-monk, Thomas Merton, said in his New Seeds of Contemplation:

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men—you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

I walk in the cold. It stings and soon my cheeks grow so numb I can no longer enunciate my P's and  M's. The holly shrubs are the only green thing here, and the skeleton fingers of trees reach up to the bluefrozen sky as if they pray for warmth. They will pray through the darkness of night and get none.

Behind me is my home and inside sits my computer. I recently won a blogging competition and today's bar on my web analytics is climbing to heights I've never experienced before. But I left the stats for the cold because we do not live for digits on a screen but for moments like these, alone in the woods, staring at bare trees which grasp for warmth. Aren't we all grasping?

I started coming here to meditate when those digits were single numbers that looked lonely and cold on the screen, and now I come here when they are great giants, almost crowding out my computer and my comprehension in their black weight. I come here because I must. I wouldn't be able to bear it all without these walks. My mind would snap like one of those wooden treefingers.

This is what meditation has taught me:

Gratefulness.

I am grateful for those wee little numbers and I am grateful for the giants. Who could live without gratefulness? And by live I don't mean eat, breathe, sleep, and go to the bathroom. I mean eat so that the food tastes like manna, breathe so deeply it's like your lungs fill up with cloud and you exhale it out so that it fills the room and seems to cover it all with a holy mist, and sleep as sound as a child after a trip to Disneyland. I mean to really live.

To write well you must live. You may write without living, but what kind of writing would it be? Not the kind that will change the world, that must be said in certain terms.

The Challenge

Coincidentally, though, this life I'm talking about sometimes comes to us through writing. While I had glimpses of this life before, it wasn't until I began writing that I was truly able to grasp it. Words can be woven together to form a great net to throw over life, tie it down long enough to slurp into your soul.

This is what The Write Practice is about, then. Not just learning to write but learning to live. Not just learning to weave words to get a paycheck or some internet glory, but learning to weave them into life-catching nets that can bring life to the whole world.

So my challenge to you today is this:

1. Are you experiencing life? Right now. In this moment?
2. Is your writing bringing life not just to you but to others?

If not, then you might need more practice.

HOWLING at the moon

Some straightforward messages were driven home to me. This as I sat on the edge of my seat through the screening of Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein's 'Howl' last night in Hyde Park.
Authentic, is what I've realized I'm not; I still edit and stylize my public media persona, and even more condemning, do the same to my stream-of-consciousness-into-stream-of-words.
In the mewing of Ginsberg, "I don't want my daddy to read my words".
Allen Ginsberg has got balls. In fact, he must have the biggest balls I've ever come across.
It takes balls to be true to yourself, to be true to your words, to be true to your writer's voice.
'The Write Practice' blogger, Joe Bunting, asked Ted Dekker how long it takes for a writer to find their voice.
'"It takes four to five novels," he said. So if the average novel is about 80 000 words, then you have to write 320 000 to 400 000 words before you find your voice.
That's about 1000 blog posts.
Or 400 newspaper columns.
Or 80 short stories.'
I arrived at Hotel Lamunu in Johannesburg's Braamfontein yesterday afternoon. I'll be staying here until Thursday. Jozi's 'inner city' has been dramatically reenergized, resuscitated over the last decade and more. It's not the apartheid-artificial city I innocently got acquainted with in the eighties. This is a beyond incredible city that many miss out on because of outdated and repeatedly trundled out bad publicity.
Thanks for triggering me Allen, even 60 years after howling the world out of its McCarthyistic horror, suburban smugness and complacency.

Top man

The rain patters on my empty stomach searching for the 6; I allow the storm darkness of the late afternoon to gnaw and fritter away / like city rats at a once fresh and pre-packed steak thrown out of a restaurant's back door / at my peace and contentment.
It's unusually Sunday-black, not -blue.
Thunder gargles faintly in the distance, almost too soft for me to believe it's real. But that's Mozambique's direction, so I know it is. The ferocious storms come from East. So does my Jerusalem light.
I'm questioning my choices, of these last three weeks.
Storm. Now I'm in the eye, but for the real time one; I'm watching two years of relationship photos on my mind's eye screen.
Rain patters on the roof, that's seen countless ructions. And survived.
When some/thing/one was so good that newbies pale into insignificance, why does it end.
Above the local grill I hold you up against the light and see the holes, but the journey is compelled. (You don't know that, I do. I swallow hard; from this cup must I drink?)
Change the subject.
Ok.
The overwhelming message for my writer this week has been to wake the f*ck up and smell the roses, it's time to be true to your voice; so says mr Bunting, the artist's way, dear Robin, and instinct's gut.
Authenticity.
I suppose authenticity had been my theme these 3 weeks. The courage to be who I am, no matter how much it stinks.
ying$yang