Dailiness

I am on a steep bank, full of rocks jutting out of sandy soil. It has been neglected. But even as I say that, you must understand that it is on the west side of the house where weed seeds blow in and the afternoon sun bakes down and the wind beats a drum. Most plants don't thrive. Only things wild and scrubby. Working here I call my "scrub work."

The rocks hurt my feet. The slope of the bank makes it too easy to twist an ankle. The bugs collect on the sunny side of the house. My husband often wears a bandanna over his face to keep them out of his mouth. The ants are vigorous and aggressive. We are trying to bring them under control.

I can feel the wildness of the bank when I work on it. It's like a tiger that I scare away with a torch. Overnight, it returns and must be pushed back again.

I know the pushing back is the key to becoming civilized. And it must be done with many small investments of time. Otherwise, I will break my back on it. The wilderness will swallow me and spit me out. So every morning before the heat becomes toxic, I go out and I dig up weeds and rocks. I prune. I swat the bugs. I rake the debris from the last two years.

When I finish each morning, I head back inside for lunch. It looks like I've hardly worked, of course. The bank is so large and my trowel is very small. There are more things to tame than I had dreamed of. Just inside the door, I wipe every square inch of skin with wet paper towels which come off my body in the color of mud. That's the dust of the bank clinging to me. Then I take a shower and scrub and scrub.

I've been given a parable for writing in the wilderness. My blank pages are a steep bank full of rocks jutting from sand which blows up in my face with the wind. My trowel is small. Tigers prowl the edges of my work. There are things here fighting against me that I hadn't dreamed I'd face.

I know how I have to do this. One small daily task at the time. One word at the time. I must keep moving. I must imagine what is possible. I will prevail -- as long as I endure and as I take up only the day's work and no more.

Writing is a process, just as gardening is a process. We do not arrive at a garden like it is a destination. We carry the garden in our everyday life. We carry it in our arms and on our backs and in our minds. We live in the garden and it lives in us.

We live in the writing and it lives in us.

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This post was written from a prompt in a discussion of The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life by Julia Cameron at High Calling Blogs. We're reading through the book and sharing our thoughts.

What's one thing about writing that can make it hard for you? Are there certain times when it's harder?

Photograph, heart-shaped leaves in Pisgah National Forest, copyright 2010 by Cassandra Frear.