Seeking Gold

When my brother passed away, we made arrangements for his service with minister Carolyn Patierno, the mother of one of my former students.  After my father and I met with her, Carolyn pulled me aside to ask how I was doing. 

“Okay,” I told her.  “I’m trying to get out for a walk now and then, and it helps.”

Carolyn was glad that I was walking.  “It’s so important to move,” she told me.  She had studied with a professor at seminary who emphasized this as well, because “grief settles in your joints” and movement allows us to circulate it—to process it. 

I loved that analogy.  “Grief settles in your joints.”

I come from a family of “movers.”  My father, who coached cross-country and track for his entire teaching career, took up tennis in his retirement.  He is a formidable opponent, ranking fifth in New England in his age group not long ago.  His younger sister, Ellen, bikes, swims, runs, kick-boxes, and does yoga.  She is in her mid-seventies.  Their brother, John, won the Boston Marathon in 1957, won the Pan American Games marathon in 1959, went to the Olympics twice, and was an icon of the runners’ movement which began in the 1970’s.

I’m overweight and plagued by back, hip, and knee problems.  But I am still compelled to be active—it’s in my blood.  After my sister passed away in March 2001, I ran and sobbed through the spring and summer.  9/11 followed, so I continued to run through the pain and questions.  I have branched out to swimming, biking, and walking, but the need to move (outdoors) is deeply ingrained.

For the past few weeks, I haven’t had much opportunity to get out, however.  I attended the SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in NYC this weekend, and arrived home all fired up to write.  But my schedule since coming home has allowed for nothing but work, meetings, and volunteer-related work—no opportunity for movement or for writing.  Last night I sat down for a few minutes at the computer, and—nothing.  No inspiration.  No thoughts.  I stared at the screen.

My brain was a jumbled mess of nada. What was wrong?

And then I realized—I haven’t been able to get out and really move since Friday in New York, when I took the opportunity to do plenty of walking around the city. 

Not only does grief settle in your joints, creativity does, too. 

So today I am going to take myself out for a walk.  It’s the one day this week that I’m not working, although I’m still catching up an a million errands.  But I know that a few miles in the fresh air will get my thoughts flowing. 

And I’m reminded of how the old timers used to pan for gold by allowing running water to wash away the silt which hid those valuable flakes and nuggets of gold.  When I move, the circulating blood somehow manages to float away all of the extraneous thoughts from my mind. 

When we are dealing with loss, some of those extraneous thoughts may be the painful aspects of grief—the memories which focus on the loss itself and the anguish it caused.  What’s left behind for me is the essence of my loved ones’ lives.  The truth of why they lived, rather than why they died. 

When we are talking about creativity, movement acts like an opened sluice, helping to float away the extraneous, the unnecessary, the stuff that gets in the way of what’s important.  It clears away the silt which settles in our brains, and it allows us to see what’s real, what’s important.  Again, it allows us to see the truth.

And truth is what we, as writers, need to work with whenever we write.  Sure, we’re making up stories.  Sure, the work is “fiction.”  But fiction without truth is a hollow thing.  Just as life without truth is merely delusional.

Writers find many ways to improve their creativity.  Some are movers—biking, walking, and running their way through life.  Others are listeners, playing or performing music that suits their needs and tastes.  Some are observers, sketchers, painters.  But all of us are miners, moving through this world and swirling away the silt of everyday life, looking for that bright speck of gold.  Looking for the truth.