Julia Cameron – Amanda Salisbury Books & Art

The tough make bone broth?

In Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance by Julia Cameron, the author says:

When we remember that we have a daily life, we begin to find our grounding….It is our job, faced with impending changes, to continue to husband the life that we have got.

She wrote of career changes, particularly good ones that can feel like very unstable ground. In my life today, this applies to the changing seasons.

We adopted a puppy. I’m embarking on new mediations for my anxiety and depression. My youngest will soon enter middle school, and my eldest has already gotten a small taste of high school, which begins shortly. My husband is still settling into a new job. Middling is constantly looking for the thing that makes him great.

This is the season I am living. It is not a bad season, but the change itself is anxiety-producing. I must persevere.

Remembering my daily life has been grounding. Laundry, dishes, and a home-cooked meal have a way of removing drama. It’s hard to be dramatic over a hot sink of dirty dishes. Or when holding a puppy. Or when simply reading a book.

For me, one thing is sure to reduce or eliminate drama swirling about my home: making bone broth. Maybe it is the husbandry of the thing. Maybe it’s the time and the slow alchemy of turning discarded bones into golden nourishment. Either way, I feel more centered with these jars awaiting the freezer. I feel more at home in my own life. Like the more things change, the harder I must work to remember the unchanging: my God, my love for my family, and dirty dishes.

This is how I plant and water my life. Small acts of husbandry and love repeated. Now have a puppy picture.

For you who are playing along at home, no, I’m not addressing discipline in a very, ahem, disciplined manner. Which is to say, I’m all over the place. First, I talked about disciplined parenting. Next, mindfulness as a spiritual discipline. Now, morning pages.

When I began research for this year’s theme, one writing discipline cropped up over and over. Morning pages. The best way I can describe it is: flushing the line. Think intravenous port. Sometimes the nurse injects saline to clear out the blood or stuff in there. Or brakes. Same thing but with a mechanic and less blood, hopefully.

The authority on Morning Pages, Julia Cameron, insists that the three pages should be written longhand. I have not committed to the longhand proscription, mainly because it is difficult for me to hold small items like spoons and pens, so I tend to reserve that strength for making art.

So, I write in Scrivener and have done so since 2011. I have lots and lots of Scrivener files roaming the vast landscape of my computer. I added one this January for morning pages. I’d love to say I am more faithful than a Timex in this discipline. I’m not. Yet. Hence the whole work in progress thing.

When I use morning pages, it flushes the line…of my brain. Okay, the metaphor kinda breaks down, but I know you follow.

How I do morning pages: Open Scrivener file whenever I start my day as a writer [morning pages are like morning sickness in that they might happen at any moment]. Add new document dated today. Flush for 750 words. Close Scrivener file.

I don’t add these words to my daily word count, so I feared I would resent those 750 uncounted words. But it’s a fantabulous practice for me. I vent. I type stream-of-consciousness ramblings. [Not unlike blogging in my case.] Whatever bugs me, whoever weighs on my thoughts – I leave them on the page. That frees me. Truly.

Wholly unscientifically, I would estimate 91.77% of my morning pages since January consist of me emoting over the state of our nation. This has led to some interesting brainstorms for actions. And it keeps me a little more balanced. There’s only so much we can SAY to each other before we fall into a death spiral of angst or fear or worry. My morning pages don’t have feelings. And they don’t have expectations. They don’t have needs or fears of their own. They don’t bear their own burdens or have anything to unpack. I never say the wrong thing or hurt their feelings or step on their worries. I can simply vomit words about my own feelings, burdens, unpacking, expectations.

Morning pages differ from journaling (for me) because the latter has always felt forced. Like I was trying to convey something to someone. I censored. I rewrote my own history whenever I journaled. Why is this practice different? Purpose, I think. The immediate purpose of journaling was to emote. The immediate purpose of morning pages is to flush the line. To move on to other, more interesting things. You may not have that kind of bifurcated view. If journaling works for you, morning pages likely will. And if you are no diarist, morning pages may be a means to an end. They may help you flush your brain line.

Do you write morning pages? How does it impact your writing?

Resources:

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

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