Ripple Effect

Fanning out in coursing waves, one choice leading to the next one, cresting into the other until one word cannot be spoken without a torrent of others flowing forth. Silence becomes a habit. Days once spent following lives of creative, artistic and inspired women and mothers yield to a reclusive sense of "being" alive off-screen. Whole weeks pass without even one thought of blogging or sharing myself or checking in on those online souls I still nonetheless feel a tremendous affinity for. When I finally do, I realize that the eddies and currents have carried me off. It is hard not to feel isolated from this bend in the stream here, but I have a heart cracked open wide enough to see that my doubts and my joys shimmer in the liquid glow of late afternoon no less vibrantly...your struggles, though not quite mine, still offer me insights in growth, flexibility and inspiration.

I am not strictly able to blog about my creative process these days. Yes, I am still writing and having things published and feeling delight for my work on the magazine I am a part of. My book has been finally resurrected from the hard drive and sent in migration into the wider world and though its final outcome is unknown...I-have-fully-finished-writing-a-novel. When fear comes about the ultimate fate of it, I remind myself that it already won me a grant and gave me opportunities for teaching and public readings and income that I never would have had otherwise. I remember that I have now succeeded at something that so many other writers dream of, fully completing a manuscript 100% without being dissuaded by self-doubt. I hope to immerse myself in the new material I am covering now. I peel through journals and watch them flake off bits of my raw emotional self like birch trees in winter--all exposed and in transition.

I feel like I am slipping back into my own body after far too long away. I touch bones again, feel blood undulating in my veins, warm and alive, lungs opening and closing like wings. Yes, this life is *all* wings. This new territory requires all of my attention as I map out the unknown rivers and tributaries. Questions lead to other questions...the ripple effect I sometimes dread until I harness the water itself and consider, too, how the love I continue to offer others also has a ripple effect of its own. It is easy to love when life is flowing along smoothly and gently...how do we manage to do the same when the rivers are flooding and reshaping the silty banks we always trusted to hold their form? This is what my life is now...the way I move between worlds and identities, trusting the flow.