I wrote this last week for my own blog in response to a big personal upheaval in my life.  The details aren’t important – what matters is that in my moment of crisis, this is what I wrote.  And looking back over it, I felt like it might be worth sharing here, amongst my writing peers.  I hope you enjoy it and that it means something to you as well.  

Write so that it does not rule you, does not wrap itself around your spine and sink into you and become you.

Write so that you remember – so that after the “This is happening”  has happened, and those chemicals that Mother Nature gave us to survive such traumas have done their thing, that there is a record of The Thing That Happened, lest you need to remind yourself what it was that changed you.

Write so that you can heal.  That you can ask the questions no one has answers to, if only to get them out of the hollows of your frightened skull and onto paper – trapped in lead between lines that you own.

Write to take its teeth out – this thing swirling inside you with its black eyes and dark intentions.  Write to strike it powerless against you and your fragile heart.

Write because it’s all you can do.  Surrender to the tap of keys, the scratch of pen… let the knowledge that you know not enough keep you company as you try to make sense out of the senselessness.

Write so that you can sleep.   So that you can lie down at night without the pressure of things unsaid and unanswered pressing into your quaking chest.

Write so that you may quiet that quake and breathe.

Write because language has the power to transform.  Let it take over and wash through you and transform you from frightened observer into active participant in this unfortunate chain of events… even if it is only in how you steer the words on your screen, they are still your words – your truths – they are your sacred experience come to lines and curves and they are beautiful and tragic and transformative.

Write to find stillness.

Write to come to a quiet place where you are spent, finally, and it is still.

… it is quiet.

You are there.

And you are powerful.