How re-reading my old writing helps me get unstuck..
Or, HELP, I'm massively procrastinating again..
I’m back in one of those weird, murky, transitional phases. You know, when life feels overwhelming, you have a million things to do, some of which you actually, genuinely, want to do, but instead you choose to eat pizza on the sofa, watching re-runs of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, whilst doing Duo Lingo (because that’s kinda productive). Just me? OK, then.
Right now, I’m doing anything but those things I want to do. I have no idea what’s brought on this general malaise. A frustration with all the horrible stuff that’s currently happening in the world, fatigue at the number of projects I’ve been trying to move on simultaneously, or something else? In fact, scrap that. I do know what this is. I’ve moved away from myself a little too much, and focussed instead on doing things to pay the bills and tick the boxes. All very necessary, and also bloody stifling.
Usually, when I’m in this state of seeming paralysis, I’ll chuck myself in the nearby river (currently out of bounds because of flooding/ and Thames Water being shit - pun very much intended) or go to my favourite streetdance class, but today even those things feel like too much effort. Thankfully, during a spot of comparatively useful procrastination, I came across an old piece of writing of mine. A piece of which I’m particularly proud and want to share.
Reading Between Rivers: A love letter to the Cherwell, I am struck by how nostalgic I feel for that time. A time when I felt so stuck in uncertainty, yet so inspired by possibility that I wanted to write about it, to record it, to enable a rediscovery of it when I needed it most.
I love re-reading my old writing. Happening upon it like a fiver I’d lost in the garden. It enables me to review how far I’ve come; to see where I’ve made inroads to those previously untrodden paths and nervously taken steps down those unfamiliar avenues. It allows me to take stock of life since those last recorded significant events, memories and times. Right now, I’m marvelling at how writing is a mechanism for doing that. How this piece, right now, will enable that in the future. And isn’t that wonderful?
On re-reading Between Rivers, I am reminded of my own ebb and flow, my own ways of being, my own comfort and discomfort at being stuck. More importantly, I’m reminded of how it is just this kind of stickiness that occurs before a huge rush of energy takes it’s place. And so on. So many things in life are circular. So many things run in cycles. Just like nature. It is the sitting in it that’s difficult and that’s what I need to do now. Practice patience and acceptance. Be in between my own Spring and Summer.
I wrote Between Rivers after being in my happiest place, my homeliest place; the intersect of creativity, community, nature and movement. Back in 2020, working with photographer Jim Marsden on Bodies of Water joyfully jolted me back into alignment with myself. I will always be grateful for that time.
Between Rivers also brought me back to some of my favourite words by Margaret Atwood (from The Penelopiad):
“Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”
I wanted to share these reflections and that old piece with those who are also feeling stuck; with those who feeling like they are waiting for something, sitting there ‘patient’ enough to ‘wear away stone’. I’m going around it by writing this. Not my finest work, or my most well-researched, but an outpouring of words to start the flow.
I’d love to know what helps you move through your stuck phases and how you re-find your authenticity when life takes over? Do share in the comments if you feel called to.