Sunday Blog 117 – 7th January 2024
Middle of the night musing
Perhaps I am strange but I love the gap in the night between my first sleep and my second. A sweet pause where I am refreshed and delivered into the deep quiet of the night. Nothing to do. A clear schedule.
Once I was told that I had an “administrative” soul and a “creative” soul. The administrative soul has enjoyed my career, watching me work hard and smash out those goals. My creative soul has waited, the quiet child at the party, watching on from the sidelines, hoping to be noticed. That I would walk over and strike up a conversation where I admitted that I did indeed want to give this writing thing a proper go.
Two years ago the quiet child roared out from the sidelines, and I quit the career. Even so, my time can get filled up with Things Other Than Writing. Like this weekend, helping clear out the family home of 65 years which has an astonishing melange of trash and treasure jumbled up together. It’s a writer’s procrastination wonderland.
Last night I was delivered into this quiet, gracious space of the middle of the night and was listening to a podcast that is non-stimulating and calming. Except the quote above from Clara Pinkola Estes electrified me. I had to pad around the darkness of the family home trying to find pen and paper to write it down.
You see, I am revising my 2014 memoir Not My Story to re-release it in 2024. It debriefs a single incident trauma I survived 22 years ago. Like all my writing projects it seems to emerge as it wants, wilful and skittish. The book is now demanding relevant quotes and this one from Clara Pinkola Estes was perfect. Wanting Something Good to come out of that trauma was an urgent, instant need. But as time has gone on and on I wonder did I listen carefully? What exactly did I hear, and is it the same message now?