letting in the chaos {1/9/13}

I'm in the process of moving right now, and let me tell you, my house is a mess. There are boxes everywhere, things half-packed and stacked. And if you are anything like me, your external environment has a hefty impact on your internal one. This week the inside of my head feels as chaotic as my living room. Once I start packing, I start stressing about how I'm not writing. But when I try to write, I stress because I need to pack. Not ideal working conditions.

On top of that I am not just revising right now--I'm trying to generate a new chapter. From scratch. There is nothing quite so uncontrolled, so messy, so uncomfortable as a first draft.

But this is how things begin. It's necessary to embrace, or at least accept, the tumult. The brightest flowers and most magic of mushrooms sprout up from piles of shit. And here's the rub: you don't have to do anything to make that happen, other than leave the shit alone.

So yes, I can live in the same place for the rest of my life, shuffling around the same words from the same draft of the same manuscript. Or I can choose to move forward, into the unknown, with the boxes, blank pages, and shit that entails. It isn't easy, but today I am determined to let shit be shit, and trust that there will be some psychedelic beauty as a result. And hey, even if mushrooms and flowers don't appear, I will at least have a two-car garage and a backyard.