As the snow falls steadily outside, I sit inside moving from one item on the to-do list to the next. The last item: read a “manifesto” on the writing life. Sigh, I have spent the past couple of hours creating a schedule for myself during this season of unemployment in hopes that I don’t get lost in the fray of job postings and resumes and wonderings and confusion.
What to do next? That is the question on the table now that I’ve returned home from my writing residency without a job or a clear next step. This is what I chose to enter into–the unknown.
The unknown: a vast horizon, an aisle of innumerable options, a frightening eternality. To not have a hard-stop to this season conjures up a sense of uneasiness seemingly impossible to abate.
And then, I read the Writer’s Manifesto created by successful writer and blogger, Jeff Goins, and the uncertainty, dis-ease, and fear subconsciously recedes as his words take root. What you must do, he says, is begin.
So, I put my phone away, open a new Chrome window free of 15 tabs of distractions, wrap a blanket around my legs, and commit to a period of writing. I create a fortress free from the variety of pressing concerns that are mounting with each passing hour.
This, this is why I have chosen what I have chosen: the space to create which was crowded out by all the concerns and needs of those around me And, I’ll be damned if in this season of chosen spaciousness, the presence of my own version of chaos will root out the gift of creating something out of nothing, something that produces possibility, life, hope.
Everyday, the opportunity to begin again, to grow into the freedom of becoming the person we were created to be, is offered.
Now is the time to begin.
The Unspeaking Center 