May 2022

Dear Friend,

Following a day of interruptions and what I might call discombobulation I wrote the following in my journal last week (and posted it to my blog),

It’s been hard to find time to write today. I’m feeling it.

Writing is important to me, very important. I can trace the start of my time putting pen to paper back to when I was traveling in my mid-twenties. I don’t know what made me do it, but I started keeping a journal (or diary as I referred to it then) as a log of places that I was visiting and my impression of them. With time that morphed into more of a reflective journal on what I was thinking about life in general, or what the experiences of that day were bringing up for me.

On returning home, I carried on keeping a journal. It was not necessarily everyday, but fairly often. I would write about what I was doing and things and people who I might be struggling with in that moment. As my meditation practice started, I would keep my journal beside me and if something came up while I was meditating, I would stop and write, free flow, feeling as though I was purging the thoughts from my head and helping me to process what was going on. (I have never been taught that as a practice, but it has helped me - there is a blog post in there!)

The scientifically minded of me would like to understand what is going on, but if I can put that wish aside (maybe I will find the answer one day, but it is not that important right now as I know that the process works for me) and just trust the process, the business of writing becomes an essential part of me. The getting down on paper or in digital format what is in my head. Exploring thoughts or allowing creative description to emerge.

If I have days scheduled ahead of time that take me from writing time, I can comfortably manage that. However, with time that becomes more difficult. I am missing out on something. It is in part why I have set up a method for recording events into a digital journal. It allows me to quickly type some words and save them. It is like slipping in a quick one minute meditation if I simply want to keep the continuity going, but sitting for longer is not possible that day.

So I share with you here a selection of my writing, long and short that appeared on my blog through May. Please do get in touch if you have any comments.

Thank you for reading,

David.

p.s. just writing that felt good 😊