At A Loss For Words

It had never really occurred to me before, but it turns out if you’re finding yourself starving even after eating, it could be because you’re missing an essential vitamin or mineral that was not in the food you just ate – or the food you’ve been eating lately.

I have recently found a similar deficiency in my language, and suddenly I have realized that I am starving.

It didn’t occur to me until lately that words possibly could not be enough; that this vast and varied language that I love to play with could be missing anything at all; that there wasn’t a word for absolutely anything I was feeling, even if I personally didn’t know it yet.

Recently it has begun to occur to me that it is very likely the language I love so much is skewed: skewed toward a logical existence, and away from a creative one.

Certainly, there are many words that I can string together to create a creative picture: I can roar and scream and wail my words; the flame can burn, char, crackle and stutter in the rain if I so wish. The words are sufficient, invisible audience, but suddenly, they are not enough.

I’ve been feeling a disquiet lately. It’s the kind of discomfort that causes me to squirm in my skin; to sit staring out at the rain from my porch, my journal in my lap, trying to find the colors to paint a vibrant landscape with a palette of beige.

The words are no longer enough. Screaming out loud comes closer; breaking things for the sheer joy of hearing them shatter could possibly be the right track; setting a painting on fire might just be the way to convey the heat I’m trying to capture. It’s as if suddenly I have awoken inside a black and white world and I am trying to describe the brilliant hue of the sunset in my dream. It’s as if I want to break clear out of my skin, slough it off like a snake, and slither away cloaked entirely in sunlight.
Suddenly, words seem too logical for what I am. The creativity is leaking out of my every pore; I find it difficult to sit in front of a computer and type black onto a white page when I’d rather be screaming in ecstasy jumping off a cliff; I’d rather have my hands in the dark dirt and see it gathered under my fingernails; I’d rather run until my breath is ragged in my chest and I collapse, my entire body spent.

I’d rather be flying, and yet it still wouldn’t be enough. My creativity, my sexuality, my appetite, have all started screaming that they are starving for outlet; they are all the same thing, you see: the craving for connection, for intimacy, for fire, for art, for moments that stretch the heart chambers and cause the head to bow in disbelief; the moments that take my breath away and cause me to gulp it back in in huge deep breaths, because it is not enough to live one lifetime on this wondrous plane. Instead, I can only look forward to many lives left to come, because each moment is a new one: each sunrise a new brilliant flame, each full moon a new poem to be written, each star-studded sky a new chance to lay out in the grass and ponder how small I am, and how large a universe I get to explore.




Love and wordless kisses,
Morgan

The Truth of the Matter

There’s so much we don’t talk about, invisible audience. The list of people I know that post happy things on Facebook while suffering from anxiety attacks, depression and huge emotional upheavals is endless. The number of people I know who bought houses and feel weighed down by the responsibility instead of lifted up by it – and are unaware that anyone else ever feels this way – is long. The people who contacted me, both privately and publicly after my post on depression, telling me that I had said something they couldn’t say out loud, was almost staggering. And yet here we all are – me included – doing our best to pretend nothing is wrong.

There are many, many things going right for me these days. I’ve been looking back through old journals, and realizing how much better my life has become in the past few months. I have realized how tired I was, how defeated I felt, how bruised and battered I had been. Sometimes, it is only by walking out of this pain that it finally becomes possible to see it for what it really is, and to realize how much of that pain I handled alone, simply because I was sure that no one else could possibly be as insecure, afraid, foolish, or as ignorant as me.

I don’t necessarily feel this way now, but I wanted to share something that I wrote for my book. Every time I read it it makes me cry, because it is so chock full of my own personal truth. I wanted to share it with you, invisible audience, because so many of you have reached out to me – making yourselves visible – to tell me that you, too, feel the way I do; that I am not alone, and that sometimes what I share makes you feel less alone, too. 

“There’s a point that no one really talks about in the life of someone who leaps for a dream. Well, it’s talked about, but from the other side of it, when it is over: the period of time when you are alone with your thoughts, with your project sitting in front of you. It is the time that it feels like no one believes in you except you, and that’s only sometimes. It’s the time that you’re sitting in front of your laptop, typing out one word at a time, without knowing for certain whether those words will ever be seen by a single other person, and, if they are, if those words will mean anything to them.
It is the period of time that you have carved out of what could otherwise be a stable life to sit alone and create. This is the scariest point.

You are taking a chance on yourself. You are convincing others – at least half-heartedly; at least through your actions – that you believe you have a project worth making time for; you are investing in yourself with the idea that it will lead somewhere. You are battling with the voice in your head that wonders if this endeavor will lead anywhere, and you are leaning hard against the door that stands between you and the worst critics that keep marching into your thoughts to tell you how crazy you are.

When you get to the other side of this period, everyone congratulates you on a job well done. They tell your story for you: how Stephen King’s family was almost destitute before Carrie got him a huge advance; how the bloodied boxer in the Hollywood movie got to hug his girl and say, “See? I told you I would win.”

On the other side of this period, and from the outside, it seems like this period is romantic and sweet; from inside the moment, it can feel like the burning fires of hell.”

Writing a book is hard, invisible audience. Perhaps it’s not the same for you, but when I go into a book store now, I look at the endless titles, at the paperbacks and hardcovers, and I imagine them: the authors, hunched over their laptops, facing down their fears, typing one letter at a time; creating something out of thin air and making it into a mass of pages that somehow form a long cohesive thought that someone else can pick up and enjoy.

This can apply to anything: musicians, athletes; anyone who makes a decision based not on what is safe, but on what speaks to their soul. It is terrifying, and exhilarating, and it is not talked about enough.

My fear is not what makes me different. My fear makes me human. Perhaps it is natural to feel alone in my fears, but the quickest way to diminish them is to admit that they’re there. By doing this, I take away the power that fear has had over me. Sometimes, all it takes is someone else saying, “I feel the same way.” Sometimes, all it takes is assurance that I am not alone. 

Love and not alone kisses,

Morgan

Sometimes, it just doesn’t get any better…and sometimes it does

I enjoy writing so much that I will do it in response to nearly any occasion or happenstance. I write when I’m afraid, angry, introspective, happy, depressed, or euphoric. Sometimes words spill out of me and onto the page for no greater reason than they need to be there; sometimes, I’m fairly certain the words weren’t even mine to begin with.
There’s a great talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) on TED.com. Gilbert talks about the creative process for some of the greatest writers, poets and musicians, and how many of them feel that their creative genius is actually a separate entity. Gilbert talks about how the Greeks (or was it the Romans?) used to refer to a genius as if were a small elf that people had at their disposal that would help them with their artistic endeavors: no one was a genius, one simply had a genius.
Gilbert wants to make the general public aware that the creative process is not always easy, or creative: for a lot of people, it involves a lot of self-discipline and sticking to a schedule. It involves sitting down to write at the same time every day and dedicating a certain part of your day to the pursuit of your dreams, regardless of what else you might want to be doing. I can definitely agree with her and identify with her remarks, but man oh man, when that genius comes through the door, you know that she’s there.
I’ve written posts before where I called my genius Creativity and spoke about her as if she were a fussy adolescent who exasperated me with her inconsistency. Now, I think of her more as a perfect day: the day where you do everything the way you’ve always done it, but for some reason on this day everything goes perfectly and you’re left perched on the top of the world, wondering how exactly you got there.
Some days, the writing is like that. Some days, I get an urge to write and what comes out is so packed with emotion, so incredibly amazing, that I read it and wonder how on earth something like that came from me. Although I can’t ultimately control when those days occur, I have noticed that I get them more when I’m in beautiful surroundings, under a new moon, or embarking on a new adventure. My genius arrives when I’m reminded of all the amazing things that life is comprised of. Even though I can’t yet control how often my genius comes to me, I can make sure I help my circumstances to be exactly what she’s looking for when she stops by. Maybe that way, I can eventually convince her to stay.

Love and genius kisses
Morgan