Now -- I must REALLY write

I love this line in Magnolia, shrieked by a distraught Julianne Moore:

"Shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up!
. . . . Now -- you must REALLY shut the fuck up!"

My personal inner scream is, fortunately or unfortunately, the opposite.

Now -- I must REALLY write!

I must really not shut the fuck up.

I know, from certain feedback I have received, that some folks are wanting -- waiting, even -- to see what I will write here next. But that's not why I really must write.

I know, from the various lecturing, scolding, meddling demons in my head that there are pressures in me to be productive, prolific, and communicative (many of these demons I consider odious and impure). But that's not why I really must write.

I really must write because I think that it is in me to do so.

I take this seriously, this writing -- this communication via electronic somethings whizzing out to the great beyond.

I think something happened in my blogging a couple of months ago. I came to that point where I could either go forward into more intimate territory -- really talk about what was going on with me -- or -- I could go into ever more fluffy and insubstantial funny "stuff" -- OR -- I could abandon the blog, officially or unofficially.

I'm so embarrassed right now -- I think, as I examine the past months, that I simply abandoned the blog -- and did so unofficially. I left myself, and any erstwhile readers, hanging.

Wow.
Damn.
I think I did that.
I just hate it when I do that.

So, now I'll talk about what's been going on with me, beyond the report of moving, activity, events external, and circumstance.

I've been in this strange internal state -- I think since December, really. I have a strong sense that something is on the verge of changing -- a big sort of changing -- maybe in me, maybe in my work, maybe in the world -- I'm not sure of its locus. I just have this suspended energy inside me that I vaguely recognize as some sort of psychic pregnancy -- at times I positively a-glow with it, at other times I feel impatient as a woman at eight and three-quarters months -- but there it is. I am alternately restless and listless, alive with a sense of possibility one moment, and flattened by the droning mantra in my head ("what difference does it make?") the next.

I'm amazed that I haven't had more resistance to the process. I think that when this started last December, I pondered whether it was holiday stuff, astrology, or just a ripple in the collective thought-field that I was picking up on (an occupational hazard for a psychic), but I didn't really fret over it. After we had accomplished our physical move, I think I expected it to abate, or at least that I would be so busy that something would be jarred loose. I found, instead, that it actually increased.

At moments, this waiting for something felt somewhat like depression, which is rare for me at this point in my life.

Some days, I wandered around my office, looking at the piles of work to be done -- work that I actually think is meaningful and important most of the time -- but I found myself staring at them like a bored teenager, and whining "there's nothing to do".

Last night, as I started this post (around midnight), I suddenly had this weird idea -- what if the blog is the baby I'm trying to have? I started this entry then, but I found that my sleepy fingers were no match for the locomotive of my brain at that point. I typed the first few sentences to set this entry into motion, and went to bed, fully intending to return to it today.

And here I am. I actually have returned to it. Which must mean something, since my desk is still littered with half-finished projects of seemingly equal merit -- yet this is the one that has called me today.

While I don't think I've really enjoyed this six month gestation period as I might have, I haven't suffered it either, which seems to me like progress in my ability to simply experience my own process.

This is the insight I had about the metaphysical ennui I have been experiencing:

The chant that resonated off and on in my head, especially during the past few weeks, goes like this -- "What difference does it make? Everything's already been written. Everything's already been said. There is nothing new under the sun."

When I listened to that chant as if it were "true", I found that I felt sad. Which led me to wonder if there was an important message for me in that sadness -- what was my soul hungering for?

And there it was -- I felt sad because I really did (and do) want to "make a difference". Making a difference, however slight, really is a critically important issue to me in this lifetime.

Admitting that, ironically, feels very adolescent to me -- very vulnerable. I think this is the flip side of the bored teenager who can't find anything to "do". I believe that there is this hopeful inner pubescence in me that desperately wants to make a difference.

Intellectually, I can parse out that I actually think I have made a difference, in a million ways minute and gargantuan. I've heard this directly from people. Many people.

But . . . .

And . . . .

I don't think that's exactly what the inner teen is hankering for. There's something else. Something more.

It's like knowing that I'm hungry but not knowing what I'm hungry for -- as if the perfect food to satisfy this craving hasn't even been invented -- no -- hasn't even been conceived of -- yet.

I'm standing at the cosmic refrigerator, door wide open, staring in at all the infinite goodies. What the hell do I want?

Maybe it's this. Maybe it's re-birthing the blog. Scattering my thoughts across the electronic beltway.

Worth a try.

From now on, I'll be blogging daily. Even if it's short and sweet and frugal of word. (Ha! fat chance!)

I'll be blogging from inside out. I have no idea, yet, exactly what this has to do with fulfilling my feisty inner teenager, or even if this is the particular sustenance that she has been whining for.

I know that I'm not alone in this fluctuant ride of ups and downs. I've talked to many clients and friends who are experiencing similar cycles, which to them seem just as incomprehensible. I have taken comfort in hearing these reports.

Today, I am choosing to consider that we are all about to give birth to something -- that all of humanity is on the wacky hormonal ride of pro-creation.

Maybe this is exactly how God felt right before "Let there be Light" emerged like a cosmic belch from the almighty belly.

Congratulations, Ms. Steinel, it's a blog.