A Day in the Life of a Writer

I’ve been asked so often about what it is like to live a writer’s existence that in a quiet moment this week I sat down and tried to focus on the question.

Not for the money, certainly!!

And, an inveterate introvert, not for fame.

I write because this is the way that I make sense of existence, discover what I think, and try to extract meaning from the otherwise continual streams of chaos that swirl around us.  I occupy a place among those who explore the “hidden” levels of existence with perhaps more intensity than others — through contemplation, walking in nature, art making, and story telling – because if we didn’t, life wouldn’t work for us.

The 20^th century novelist Gertrude Stein famously said of genius, “It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.”  The same could be said for writing.

Writing happens mostly away from my desk.   I love the early dawn quiet, rising to the first creep of sun upon the roof of my little writing studio.  I try to extend this in-between state as long as possible, reading poetry, writing in my journal, or just sitting and watching a candle burn.  There is something elemental about those early hours and the deep reservoir of silence that they hold.  The time spent here enables me to experience the rest of the day as an unfolding – as attuned as possible to all of the surprising ways in which the “holy” shows up in the every day.  I walk, talk to friends, listen to strangers, prepare to teach a class, go to the library, take pictures with my phone, buy fish.  I read, a lot.  And, yes, I take to my desk when I need to give some shape to all of this “life” in time.

Soul is a big tent.  Others enter into it through meditation, painting, prayer, ritual, journaling, chant, dance.

 The aim is a suspension of the mind’s busywork – planning, fussing, replaying old tape loops – growing into a larger dimension of consciousness, wisdom, and heart.   All of this helps to “tame” or steady, heal or deepen, one’s receptivity to beauty, kindness, and transformation.  It’s a good morning when I can remind myself that the aim is to act (and see, and love) more creatively and constructively in the world.  The objective is fluidity and movement, not becoming fixated or stuck.

Writing, like prayer, enables a deep listening.  When I am in a state of flow, the gift occasionally comes: I touch into the in-between states, into the numinous, and experience a truth, a connection, and insight that until that moment I didn’t know.

I believe that we each have an artist within.  We seekers, bumblers, and yearners, all of us from the beginning of our time on earth seek  ways of expressing our experience of being alive and our encounters with the holy AND the painful in ways that are worthy of those moments.  We make songs, prayer shawls, write poetry and humor, letters, poems and prayers.    We usually only come close.  But sometimes one of our kind raises their candle high enough to illuminate the world for all of us.  Like a second sunrise.  And this is a wonder and a blessing without equal.

In these days of turbulence, uncertainty, and chaos, I invite you to join me in spending more time listening, observing, doing less.   Waiting for your soul to move around, stretch its cramped or timid legs, and begin to speak its own language.  It will certainly come.  This language will be your holy images, your holy words.  Your gifts for the world.

For more on my new book of poetry:

https://kathleenhirsch.com