A Letter To Myself

Dearest Laura,

When you tuck your boys in at night, you remember; how you would slide under covers and wait for mother’s soft hands. You hold on to that child, long for her sweet smelling skin. Can you let it go? Not this pretend game you keep playing, but really? Why do you cry when you look at the moon? Is He not in everything you see and touch? He is yours. You are His.

You fear that this is not real. Fear one day it will be gone. Why? Why, when this is where happiness is? When the before was love? When the now is love? When Love was always there, even in the in-between.

This is real. You are not a ghost person. This is no dream. Your heart is beautiful. You have wings…

So it began. My letter to myself. It went deeper than I wanted it to. It got under my skin.

In this week’s readings from The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life, Julia Cameron urges us to write a letter. To ourselves. An Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque letter—a letter from an older and wiser eighty-year-old you.

This tool is intended to give you a higher perspective. So often our loneliness comes because we have lost the overview, the sense of the large sweep and movement in our lives. In this tool you are asked to try directly contacting what may feel to you like a mythological or archetypal character…Allow your Older Self to give you a sense of perspective, guidance, and right action….

So I stepped back. Took a look at my life. And asked myself, what do you want to say to this woman?

Turns out I wanted to say a lot.

I realized that I reacted so strongly to this exercise because I need someone to witness my life. This brought me back to that place I was years ago…that place that caused me to abandon The Artist’s Way before I even began. It brought me back to those dreaded Morning Pages.

So much of the loneliness of modern life comes because we no longer witness each other. Our lives are led at such velocity that we often feel—and are—quite alone…We need more and better witness, closer and more personal tenderness than we can offer each other long distance despite our good intentions…What writing brings to a life is clarity and tenderness. Writing, we witness ourselves…

I’ve started writing my Morning Pages, friends. Three pages of daily longhand writing, strictly stream of consciousness. L.L. Barkat, in her new book God in the Yard, calls it resting on the page. Yes...It does bring rest.

When I started, I told myself I didn’t have to do it every morning—that I have my Morning Pages, they don’t have me. I have missed a couple days. I found that Cameron is right. When I don’t write, I feel out-of-balance…lonely…blah.

I’ve started writing my Morning Pages. How about you?

Three more chapters for next week! See you on the page…

Photo by Ann Voskamp, used with permission. Post by Laura Boggess.