Trains

Now I understand why I sometimes am afraid to write. I never know how quickly the train is moving. Some days, it’s only just left the station, so I can jog leisurely to meet its pace. These days, I pick up speed quietly and naturally just as the content requires. Other days, its speed means helicoptering in and jumping out without a parachute. The content demands from me to hit the ground running, and I know I need to meet it at full force. There’s little time for ramp up. And then there are the quiet days, when we are all in slumber and I need only sit quietly within the parked train car waiting for the muse. Here, slowness is the key, no rush and no demand as the content becomes emergent in its own timing.

Overall, I like the diversity of expression and I also fear its unpredictability. Fairly often, I intend to write one thing and another bangs on the train car door, or I set out to write anything at all only to find that all the trains are dormant for the night. It’s an erratic outlet; always seeking for articulation yet finicky about the particulars of when, how, why and what.

Today, the train station is chaotic; comings and goings, different speeds, divergent destinations. I am required to jump from train to train with very little reason or momentum. It is a day for listening and a day for movement, two things that seem to be in opposition but are mostly a skill in simultaneous practice. How to be a passenger on the train while also the conductor of it? If I’m honest, it feels lately as if I’m at the mercy of it all, needing to please my own writing instead of it being a trusted release that it once was. These days, we’re more separate than ever; what gets created and who is doing the creating. A giant ball in the shape of fear of rejection mixed with the intelligence of wisdom itself, yet again.