I have read many books and watched many movies that included a character who found his/her comfort zone in some creative activity - painting, sculpting, gardening, singing, sketching, fishing, playing, writing, whatever. But for that individual it always goes beyond just “finding a comfort zone”. Many times the person identified his self in that activity, defined who he truly was in that creative focus. It was the place where the character could release his soul completely, could actually eliminate all outside stressers from his world, physically and mentally, and live only within the concentrated energy of the creation, the heart of the moment. Sometimes being in that “zone” served as a protective skin for the person, maybe from nightmares real or imagined, or life problems that required escape, temporary or even forever. Between you and me: I always thought that was a bunch of hooey.
I stand, actually sit here typing, corrected.
Because I have just today realized that I have to write. And, not only that, but when I am writing the sheer simplicity of the action takes me-my-soul-and-I to an entirely new dimension. Bills are put off, work is forgotten, stress is on hold, family waits in abeyance, life, love, all that my world encompasses sits quietly – somewhere – while I put words on paper or onto a screen. And I am myself. I am obligated to myself. And I love it. And I don’t care.
Even when the activity of trying to write won’t come easily, becomes a task, or just another goal to work toward, I still enter that state of prime me, clear beginner’s mind (primordial me?). And other times, writing comes as effortlessly as inhaling and exhaling, I can hardly get the words out of my head and down on paper fast enough, many times I can’t, it all tumbles out and I’ll lose a word here, a phrase there, a concept escapes, and the thoughts trip all over themselves, like the Three Stooges wearing no ice skates sliding into each other on a frozen pond, and end up all jumbled in a crazy heap, then quickly, silently, evaporate away, never to be seen or heard from again, or maybe not. Writing at times is like a beautiful, swollen, gorgeous swallowtail butterfly, the thought you just created floating, fluttering, wispy, erratic, you can’t quite catch it, it doesn’t want you to catch it, it teases you, is coming to you, no, it’s not, it is, no it’s going, aww rats…..and at others it comes right to you, it wants to be with you, it lands, so gently, so simply, so lightly, like magic, on the back of your hand, it calmly waits and allows you to write it down just…..so…..right. I get all warm in my underwear, giddy throughout my very soul.
Being your true self caught in the moment of creativity feels like being addicted to drugs, but so much better. Okay, I know there are a bazillion other things that are better than being addicted to drugs, maybe everything else there is in life. But what if the feeling is like being on drugs, but better? They say that drug addicts are always trying to re-experience that initial feeling – rush, high, buzz, rapture, euphoria, floating, ecstasy, bliss, exhilaration - they got the very first time they tried the drug - toked, snorted, drank, shot up, injected, inhaled, dipped and dabbed, dropped, blotted, tripped, A-bombed – but they NEVER can. That fugue state, and I use that term as kindly, pleasantly, and lucidly as I possibly can, that fugue state I am immersed in when smack dab in the middle of a creativity mind-f*#k is existing in the highest state of pure nirvana, I am loving and being loved at the same time. Time crawls deliriously slowly around me while heightened energy crackles over me. I can barely contain my excitement as I find myself wonderfully, completely, at peace. And the greatest thing of all: I can feel that way every single time I write. I so easily get lost in that space. If it is drug-induced then I am addicted.
So I write on.
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