The writer's club is a group of women, most of whom are much nearer to 50 than my friend and I, who enjoy writing and sharing their work for constructive critique and feedback. I was a bit nervous about my younger, less wisdomatic self contributing in any significant way, but truthfully, I greatly enjoyed it. This weeks assignment was to write a personal essay. Nobody actually produced a proper one, according to the club president, but there were many inspiring literary pieces produced.
One of the gals who is a gardener wrote a piece about a floral arrangement that had more beauty and description than I'd read anywhere in a long time. It made me realize how shallow and boring my writing has become. I want my writing to have life, beauty, and real meaning as hers did, but at the same time, you have to believe it came from me. So how do I do that? I hope to find out as I continue to write.
Part of the events of the group was to do a 10 minute writing exercise. They just pick a word randomly, and everyone writes whatever comes to mind. I was a bit intimidated as I wrote only a half a page, put down my pen, and felt like the work was completed. As I sat there for what seemed like an hour and looked around the room at each person busily scribbling away on their various notebooks and pads, I started to feel unsure of what I had written. I looked at my paper and then around the room again, and I felt some sort of anxiety, like I needed to write more - but about what? My thought process had been complete, there was no more. Why couldn't I be satisfied with what I wrote? Not so patiently, I continued to wait.
The word? Yesterday. We all kind of chuckled, and someone started singing, "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away..." And then we began to write.
Here is what I came up with:
There were so many things on my list of "to-do's" for yesterday that I haven't even gotten to today. If I don't turn the page in my planner, does that mean it's still yesterday for me? Can I buy time so easily? Is it really possible that if I just try not to think about it, I could fool myself into believing it's still yesterday? Whenever something is required of me, the deadline is always yesterday. So try though I might, I can never catch up anyway. As quickly as I run, my feet never carry me to done. I am always a work in progress, pushing towards the goal, only to arrive in time to find out the mark has been moved further up the line. But I will keep going as long as I can, I'm not a quitter. I would just like to get yesterday done sometime before tomorrow.
My first thought was what I mentioned earlier - shallow. Then as I re-read a few times it seemed somewhat poetic. Today, 2 days later, I rather like it. It's growing on me. I might even feel a little proud. My Life is a Breeze!
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