Dissipation

I remember once hearing an interview with Catholic author Ron Hansen.  He told EWTN host Raymond Arroyo of the discipline necessary to write on a daily basis.  He talked about the need for regularly scheduled sleep and exercise, the essential mental habit of taking oneself seriously enough to say, "I'm a writer" and to make tangible that declaration by ... writing.  Even Flannery O'Connor, who suffered from a severe form of lupus which killed her at the age of thirty-six, sat down every morning to write for a minimum of two to three hours.

I'm in the process of coming to terms with the idea of discipline.  I've spent the last thirty five years of my life raising children and I've now become a wraith in my own home.  My fifteen-year-old Welsh corgi, May, died three weeks ago and I am just realizing she was the only living creature in the house who really saw me.  I'm not invisible, but I'm definitely fading. People in their fifties without discipline do tend to fade.

I spend a good deal of time engaged in activities which are unnecessary.  I do volunteer work, I watch crime shows on television, I cook a meal every now and then, I do some graphic design, I occasionally look for a job. I spend the hours of daylight doing just about anything except writing.  I am dissipated.

Night falls and I sit down at the computer.  My intention is always to write, but then I get on Facebook.  There's a kind of deadening effect from the combination of political postings, cute baby animal pictures, cartoons and inspirational "posters," which are all staples of my Facebook newsfeed. More dissipation, only now there is zero optimism because optimism is NOT a night visitor.The combination of the illusion of connectedness and staying up too late contributes to my wraith status.

No, optimism visits in the morning, and even when writing something that may be on the dark side, I need that optimism to commit to the act of writing.  Writing is fundamentally creative, and as author and graphic novelist (he likes to say comic book writer) Neil Gaiman says, "The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before."

So I'm headed off to bed.  It's already very late, and I have big plans for the morning.  I'll start with my prayers.  I'll take a walk and have a "think" for myself.  I'll lift some weights.  And then I'll write.