If you’re following along with me on IG, you know I’m participating this year in Jami Attenburg’s #1000wordsofsummer. It’s a community write-in where for two weeks in the summer, a whole bunch of people try to write 1,000 words a day. Or some approximation thereof. Or just to dedicate or re-dedicate themselves to a daily writing practice.
Today’s pep talk was from Morgan Parker, an amazing poet and writer, and she talked about the physicality of writing—paying attention to how her body feels and the whisper of pencil on paper. This is something I think about a lot.
Possibly it’s because I’m an older writer, creeping toward fifty, and at this age, you become very aware of your body in a whole new and disturbing way. As in, wow, that thing I did at twenty with no after-effects suddenly makes me sore for days. And, wow, what is that new and deeply unpleasant sensation I’ve never felt before? And, let us not forget, wow, so perimenopause is basically like a second puberty, only you’re more exhausted? Nice.
At forty-eight, staying in the same position for extended periods of time is serious business. I have several different chairs and desks and places in which I do my writing and I get up to move around (e.g., to pee) fairly often.
Lately, I’ve been writing outside more and this is another nice way to bring myself back into my body. I feel the breeze. I hear the house finch singing on the wire that runs across our backyard. I smell cut grass. I watch the light change as clouds pass by. I taste the iced tea I make for myself every afternoon, no sooner than three and no later than four (I do like a summer routine).
My view from my outdoor writing spot, with contrail geometry today.
Writing is certainly an escape, a way to create a world with more order and more meaning and, hopefully, more joy. But the irony is that you can only create those worlds if you are very firmly rooted in the real one out here—beyond the words or the page or the keyboard.
Writing is embodied because everything we do is embodied. For better (the smell of rosemary on my fingers after I brush them across the leaves of the plant) or worse (my insistent bladder), bodies are what we’ve got.
Thanks for reading and welcome new subscribers! You Think Too Much is a free newsletter where I write about random musings with a slight sociological bent on Monday’s and writing stuff on (most) Wednesday’s. Please share and comment and like freely! So glad you’re here.
This is so true! It is hard not to get too much in my head writing as well. It's so much easier with photography and even art, but writing is a challenge. (And trust me, as you move past 50 it doesn't get easier!)
This is so true! It is hard not to get too much in my head writing as well. It's so much easier with photography and even art, but writing is a challenge. (And trust me, as you move past 50 it doesn't get easier!)
I'm 74; wish I had better news from beyond.