Because We Must

Mid-day finds me weary and sluggish. The sound of my tea kettle fills the silence. Finally the little girl has relinquished, turned-in, and quieted. She whimpered “I sorry mommy,” her new last ditch effort to avoid nap time, bedtime.

Could she possibly know what this means? And if she does, does she really think she’s in trouble? Her little apology wreaks my heart. I’m constantly shocked by her barely two-year-old vernacular. Five and six word sentences, large words like dandelion. I’m reminded of my little boy whose favorite word at age two was excavator.

We have talkers, communicators, poets and story tellers. These are our children. Little ones who beg for one more book, one more story from our mouths. They are like cups with holes in the bottom, draining out and leaving space for more, more, more.

We come from a long-line of story-tellers. Nana told stories to my husband when he was a boy. She has lamented not writing them down. And then of course my parents were/are story-tellers. From tales of adventures deep below the surface of the Pacific Ocean to stories of a young girl’s first tea party. There were always stories.

I’ve recently even discovered pages of poetry belonging to my Grandmother.

I started writing in my journals as a little girl, filling them with poetry and short stories. I had one dream for my grown up life, to be a writer, even though I didn’t really know what that looked like. In college I decided to channel my love of words into a employable field. I’d study Journalism and perhaps become a travel writer or war correspondent. I’d live on my written words.

Then one day, shortly after getting laid off from my editing job I lost the desire to write. I didn’t want to write for other people, I didn’t want to share my words. I felt as if I’d been sucked of my life-blood and had nothing left to offer. I felt like my art was a waste and it was time to grow up.

So, I simply stopped. I put my stories away. I stopped reaching out to editors and writing query letters. I gave up on a childhood dream.

I’ve since been cured of this desire to quit, but it took years and a complete overhaul in the way I viewed myself and my desire to create. I’ve realized that my desire to write comes from the heart, it’s a part of my divine gifting, and is not something that I should hide from or ignore.

Could you imagine if Mozart hid his talent or Monet viewed his brush strokes a curse, or if Hemingway failed to write his works because he classified his time putting pen to paper a waste?

I’m not, of course, putting myself the same category as these masters, I’m not working on the next great American novel, I’m writing this blog and a little memoir about life being married to a Pastor. But what I am saying, and what I do need to remind myself (constantly) is that my work is valid. As is yours.

So, painters please paint, writers you must write, creators you must create, sculpt, draw, craft, take that stunning photo, and please please share these gifts with the world. Do not hide them nor keep them to yourselves. You gift is one to be shared. Go on, create beauty, more and more beauty. Let’s saturate the world with in.

Keep creating friends, be brave as you do it.

And as always, be well.

-Rachel