I Miss Writing!

Are you aware when you miss something? I'm not, not right away.

Hi, thought I’d check in, because I miss you, my faithful readers. I miss writing on here, the routine of it, the ritual of preparing, the insights that pop up as I write. The way they transform what I see in the rear-view mirror. It’s like going to church.

But hey, I AM writing again! Or, actually re-writing. I’ve discerned, over the couple of weeks of not writing at all (I did need that space), that I want to re-write a book that I wrote years ago. I think if I don’t do that it will continue to hover in the wings whispering its lines at me.

The problem has been, that as I begin to plot the book anew, I hear those interior critical voices looping around my psyche like gnats or mosquitos. You know them. Everyone has them. A new mentor of mine has made me aware that netting those little buggers, and ushering them out, is the task that is calling to me right now, as I begin to re-write the book. When I spoke to her about the writing I heard them, insidious, monotonous, droning. “But that happened so long ago. But who cares about that story. But, but but…”

I began to intercept the drone, and name what it was. So many things. Fear. Judgment. You know, the usual cast of characters. In a way it doesn’t matter who or what it is, what matters is they’re full of shit and they are fucking liars. When I catch one in my net, all I really need to say is, oh, that’s just an old voice. And it dies. At least long enough for me to get to work, and then momentum takes over.

You know what? I’ve known how to do that practice for a loooong time. And yet I forget to do it. That is another recurrent theme of mine and I suppose it is an area mired in shame. I am supposed to know. I am supposed to be better than that. “But I already know how to do this!” I’ll think, and say, often. Apparently I am terrified that someone will think I don’t know the stuff that I do already know. But just knowing, or thinking a thing, doesn’t plant it deep, doesn’t root it. Only repetition, only practice does. So, beware of sentences that begin with “but.” Or, better yet, be aware of them. So much pride and fear in that word, but.

And now, joy in working on that particular book, which I wrote long ago, has returned. Amazingly, so has freshness, and insight. I’m re-writing the story in the 3rd person this time, which is freeing it up to become a novel. A writing mentor of mine suggested I do this about ten years ago. And to call it a novel. I stubbornly said no. Sigh.

It will be an autobiographical novel, for sure, but each morning I discover that a small section of the barbed wire fence which surrounds the (formerly finished) manuscript has been cut, maybe in my dreams. This is allowing access for all kinds of little critters. And they’re stirring up my imagination. Best of all, I see more truths, even as I totally make up stuff about other people! Writing is magical and paradoxical like that.

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

So, I need much psychic energy to do the work of re-writing a full length book. Which is why I thought I might have to take a long break from writing on here, and why I stopped payments for paid subscribers. I do not intend to serialize this book. It is the kind that needs to grow underground. But I also see that frequent short (or even long) pieces here on Substack, are a way of keeping things fresh. And like I said, I miss being on here.

Speaking of missing. This past weekend I went to the beach for two nights in order to attend a good friend’s wedding. It was the first time I’d been back in a year. Other kind friends, former parishioners from way back in my Norfolk VA days, allowed me to stay in their guest apartment over the garage. The first night I plummeted into a chasm of depression. The dark and malevolent kind, not the dull, lazy, lethargic kind. I couldn’t figure out how to escape it, not with my mind.

So I did what I’ve been advised to do in “the rooms” of my spiritual program. “Move a muscle, change a thought.” I got up, walked around, and felt a t-niney shift in energy. This allowed me to realize I’d gotten trapped in my old isolation tank and the oxygen was running out. Isolation is always my worst enemy. I wrote a text to a good friend who works the same spiritual program, saying what was going on. She immediately wrote back a brief text and told me to stay in touch. I was then able to sleep.

The next day I went to the church I attended for the four plus years we lived at the Beach. Saint Francis by the Sea. I almost didn’t go. That depressive feeling. It’s like a heavy anchor on the mind and soul and it was still there, if not nearly so heavy or dangerous as it had been the night before. The unhealthy intention to not visit a place I actually love, was picking a fight with my healthier habits of mind. Then the thought arose out of nowhere: Look at their website. Look at what will happen, check out what you will be doing if you go.

I read through the order of service for the day and immediately my entire body relaxed. Yes. The rituals, the readings, antiphon chanting, receiving the eucharist, singing the Prayer of St. Francis! Yes! Those years of repetition have worn sacred channels in my muscle memory, repaired my tired neuron pathways, created a home for a deeper encounter with Spirit. “Of course you’re going to the service, of course you are. Duh. Are you kidding?” I laughed at myself out loud.

I was late, having miscalculated how long it would take me to drive from Swansboro over the bridge to the Bogue Banks, and down the Banks from Emerald Isle to Salter Path. The whole way down the two lane beach road I was stuck behind a tourist doing 35 in the 45 mph sections. I cussed. I fumed. Damn it, I’m going to be late, I’m going to be late. I’m going to miss the procession. I’ll miss the first hymn. Oh no. Damnit. Why didn’t I leave earlier?

I am powerless over this loiterer, I told myself, and relaxed.

Turns out I was not too late. As I said to a member of the church after the service, thank goodness St. Francis is always a bit late getting started! She looked surprised.

During the service I soaked in the natural light in that beautiful space. The stained glass window with the anchor/cross up front, the wide circle of chairs with the altar in the middle, the familiar faces. When it came time to receive communion, I joined the line up to the altar. When it was my turn I smiled widely at the Deacon who held up the host in front of me. She looked directly at me, “I am so glad to see you,” she whispered, and put the wafer into my waiting, cupped hands. I didn’t move on, widened my eyes, grinned, ducked my head, like, aren’t you forgetting something? Oh. “Body of Christ,” she said. “Amen,” I said.

I cried as we sang the St. Francis Prayer. “I miss this song,” I thought. I cried in part because we used to sing this back at my high school in El Paso, Loretto Academy. Perhaps sentimentality helps us humans reach into our hidden cache of grief. Real grief can be too deep to reach, so we swim in the shallow waters at the shore, but those waters are a part of the same body, the same ocean. I am ashamed to sob in public, and I was in danger of doing so, and loudly. Snot ran down from my nose, tears from my eyes, my face scrunched up like a baby’s. My chest heaved. It felt good. Some day I’ll weep unashamedly.

During coffee hour I received at least a dozen or two dozen hugs, all of them welcome. In the church I go to now in Chapel Hill, we recite in unison this line after the priest blesses the eucharist to be taken to the shut-ins: We who are many are one body, because we all share one bread, one cup. I have a difficult time, as an autistic person, with too-muchness, with sensory overload. But in the Episcopal church we are one body. I can hug twenty people and still only be hugging one.

Many of the One Body knew about Michael’s strokes, and many of them had prayed for him. Michael, my husband, is Jewish, but when I told him I was going to church and asked if it was OK if I lit a candle for him, and ask for more prayers, he said “sure, why not?” He agrees it feels good to be prayed for, that somehow it calms nerves you weren’t even aware were on edge, and makes you feel like a part of something bigger. So as I ate little cheese and cucumber sandwiches, and drank half-sweet ice tea I caught up on other people’s stories, and caught them up on his and requested those prayers.

That afternoon I drove around the island, visiting my favorite haunts. Do I miss this? I asked myself. Why is it so difficult for me to feel the missing?

The scene of my morning walk every day for four years, a different palette every time

It was pouring rain off and on the whole weekend. Torrential rain. I never did get down to the edge of the ocean that I know I must miss so very much. Maybe it is easier not to feel just how much. Instead I went to one of my favorite restaurants in Beaufort, and ordered one of my favorite items on the menu. Do I miss this place, I wondered? I can’t tell, I don’t feel like I do. Do I miss looking out at the Banks and waiting for the wild ponies to make an appearance? I guess so.

Following a little retail therapy in the cute boutiques, I then went to the Sunday afternoon wedding, and had a good time. It was a lovely rooftop, waterfront affair in downtown Morehead City. My friends are in their sixties. The bride was beautiful, as always, her groom handsome, their friends and family friendly and open. I do shut down though, after an hour or two of being at my most animated. Boom. I’m done. I had promised my friend I’d stay for the cake. I sat down and waited. Delicious! Then I left.

The next morning I drove home through the vibrant green, canary and ochre colored fields of Eastern Carolina. They are so beautiful, I thought. I almost miss this drive. I think I do miss the fields and that row of barns, and those incredibly neat little yards around the farm houses. Or maybe I just appreciate them and am glad to see them again. I love being back in the Triangle. Chapel Hill is my home. Then again, I know it doesn’t have to be either/or. I don’t have to denounce one home to love another.

I understood now why I had sobbed in church. And I had the key to my brief plunge into the abyss the night before. Missing. Most of all, the pain of years of not feeling the missing. Too much has been piled up in storage. So many unpacked storage containers in my body. So many losses, a string of them throughout my life, not grieved in their rightful time. Unfelt. There have been so many houses, friends, teachers, dogs, cats, rocks, skies, particular trees, windows on amazing views, bodies of water left behind and never consciously missed. Each time we moved, and it was many, many times in my childhood, we were ordered to put up the curtains immediately, and unpack, while Dad went out for a beer. It needed to be all in order before he returned, no need to be told this.

I didn’t adjust well to all the moves. I have had a lifelong “adjustment disorder.” I don’t blame anyone for that, it was just how it was. How I was. One foot in front of the other was how my parents coped, how I learned to cope. We soldiered on.

Those incidents of falling into the dark abyss will happen again. I’ll forget, and then remember, and forget and remember to reach out to other people, for God’s Presence. In them. Thank God it’s always there for the asking.

POSTSCRIPT:

Three things:

• This is a kinda lonely business, writing. And I often feel quite exposed. I would love to know if/how a piece resonates with you. Don’t leave me hanging out on a limb! Maybe you could quote a line that leaps out at you, in the comments? And, if you are willing to leave even a tiny footprint behind, maybe also say why or how it resonates with you. I am in search of ways to make this site more of a conversation, but I don’t have the time or energy to begin a “chat” section as many authors are doing. So comments will have to do.

• I will be writing on here regularly again, though not necessarily on Sunday mornings, as I did every week for four plus months. So I am going to take the paid subscribers off of “pause payments.” Basically I did that because I thought this vacation might last until autumn. I was wrong. I MISSED writing on here! After only two weeks! You can, of course, always pause payments yourself, any time you want.

• I would greatly appreciate it if you would share the “For the Love of God” Substack address with your friends and acquaintances! Right now I have a mere 148 followers, 109 of whom are subscribers. I would like to set a sedate first goal of 200 MORE subscribers. I know there are many people out there thinking about the things I write about: religion, God, neuro-divergence, recovery, childhood trauma and all the interconnections involved. I’d so appreciate your connecting them with this site. And if they are writers, I want to read their stuff! Thanks!

• Last but not least: Consider sending me a piece of your writing! I would like to begin sponsoring other writing on this page! Send to majbritt.johnson@gmail.com