Words sounded, exhaled; imprinted in my mind, written on my page. But their meaning infirm, their definitions incomplete. Words recalled, and re-spoken imprinted again, to take a new form. Gaining the retina of new understanding. The process continues— I in conversation with myself
In this season of light—artificial light; bulbs and candles—we are drawn inside. The weather is too sharp. Public spaces are too full of colds, flu, and worse. I’m also drawn to my own interior, searching for more, if not deeper, contemplation.
Sure, maybe there are resolutions and plans to make, or a year to review. But maybe it’s a time to just sit with ourselves. Take a breath and close our eyes. What lives inside? No matter what we find, we live with it and it lives with us. Some might call this meditation or being present. For me, it’s just allowing my thoughts to flow and inspect or interrogate them, not to push them away.
A good book, and by that I mean one that makes me think—one that leads me to contemplation—is often the doorway. Or perhaps, more accurately, the key to unlocking connections.
I’m reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Finding my Elegy: New and Selected Poems and Jane Hirshfield’s Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. I recently finished Sofia Samatar’s memoir, The White Mosque. The only through-line between these is how each of them makes me think about my life and my work.
Like creativity itself, it’s not the results that matter as much as the process. Doing the activity opens possibilities, makes unexpected connections. These books might lead me to a particular epiphany, or they may not. But it’s the exploration and the thinking that matters most.
They say the point of a journey
is in the traveling not
the destination, but there is more.
The point of our travels is to fill us
with having journeyed
It might be dark outside, dimly lit and cozy inside, but my mind will be ablaze, sparking and discovering. My to-be-read list will keep the lights on for many weeks.
Kevin J. Fellows 