Morning Pages

I've written for years in journals. Hidden my heart and my words from the eyes of others while soaking myself in written images and thoughts. Some days, I was nearly drunk on them, steeped in them, letting them drip from me like drops from a tree in the rain.

Often a friend would say, "You should write a book." I thought it was funny. No really, funny. I laughed. I didn't believe I had anything to say that anyone else would want to read. I had read the great books. I knew what worthy writing was. Mine wasn't like that.

I'm not ambitious. I've never had the dream of being a writer or being published. That wasn't my passion. What I had was a secret love affair with words. It was through the written word that I found Jesus. It was through the written word that I escaped from the life I might have lived to one of beauty and grace. It is through the written word that I am being made new, even as I age. How could I not love it so?

This secret love affair is the true seed of my writing now, of writing for others. From that secret place, my writing was born and grew into something sturdy enough to be shared. Every day I offer seedlings to friends on a blog. Nothing more.

So I've had morning pages for some time now, and afternoon pages, and evening pages. My life has been drawn in ink, in phrases and participles, in lists and coffee rings on paper. There the truth comes to me with great clarity. I see how am I when I read the words my hand has penned. I see where I need to go. I see what matters.

But there is something more. The writing makes me more alive, more vivid, more real.

A year ago, I wrote in one of my journals about this:

I love writing in the early morning. What I write may not be remarkable. Likely, it isn't. Even so, there is a freshness to it. My mind plays like a young thing and this delights me . . . Early morning writing unlocks a vividness that is normally buried beneath the surface. In some way I can't explain, my mind is suppressed by the routine tasks that dominate most days and by the chatter of people around me. But in the morning when I awaken, it awakens to greet the day like a kitten skipping from stone to stone on a garden path.

It is this vividness and playfulness, this sense of being dramatically alive and deeply aware, that I chase. Compared to it, my usual way of living is a black and white photo. Each morning, I step into full color action by the click of some internal mechanism on the page. Nothing changes on the outside. But I interact with my surroundings in a more childlike way with an exhilarating sensitivity. When I stop writing and arise to attend to my responsibilities, the mechanism clicks shut. Back to black and white.

My best guess is that I don't live in this vividness all the time because I can't. Such openess and vulnerability in our world would leave my soul ravaged. Still I wonder. How can it seem so exactly right in the morning, as though I should never need anything else?

What do you think? Does writing help you in any way? Does it change who you are or help you discover who you are?

This was written as part of a book study at High Calling Blogs. You can go there today for the latest discussion of The Write to Right by Julia Cameron.