April 8, 2022
I am still feeling the void, the post-partum blues, I felt after the test. At first it felt ok to be in this state. My Wednesday chat friend felt exhausted and ‘brainless’ weeks after he submitted his thesis. But as time, as in days, went on and I still couldn’t write, read, or do anything remotely creative I felt anxious and restless. The uneasiness grew within my chest like a bubbling pot that was always on the point of boiling but never did.
Our family cats came to live with us on the 29th of March. They come here when their human parents travel so haven’t been here for a long, long while. They took ages to settle. Neither ate in the first 24 hours. The black one slept and slept all day, she cuddled on my feet at night, but ran away from me in the day — like she used to when we first rescued her off the streets — but 48 hours later she had managed to find stability. Now during the day, she eats, she sleeps, she wakes and demands pets, then plays by herself and goes back to her window seat spot to sleep. And she only comes to wake me at 7 am. On the first night, the white one woke me up at 2 am. He sat on my stomach, purring loudly, and kept coming back every half hour or so. He settled a bit a few days later, then unsettled himself in some way again. All day his slightly open eyes watch where I go. He sleeps lightly and meows and wanders in the day, and at night he jumps on my stomach between 5:30 and 6:00 am. He has this personality where he sometimes makes himself miserable and then stews in it. No amount of comforting soothes him during these times.
Today, or perhaps the last three days or even the entire week, I am feeling a bit like that. I can’t seem to relax and even thinking about doing something to relax, like going to the library café and journaling, tumbles me into a deeper state of anxiety.
The cats will be with us till Sunday when their human dad returns. I will help him get them and their stuff back to their home and then rush back here to pack and leave for Bombay. I haven’t been back in over two years and two months. I haven’t been anywhere and forgotten how to pack and travel. Anxious!
But my current internal suffering comes from being in a complete creative void. No writing, no reading, no drawing even. I don’t know what it is — the combination end of the test exhaustion and sleep deprivation once the cats got here, or something deeper? My mind tends to pick up the white cat’s anxiety and then we make each other more anxious. I feel sad, ashamed even, that like him I haven’t handled my disturbance at all well this time. I have been grumpy and tense.
It's a time when I am trying to establish a proper writing practice. I don’t think I’ve ever really had one. Despite having a serious passion for writing, it feels on and off — dependent on inspiration, task (as in deadline of some sort, that includes feedback to another writer), and time (as in when I have time constrains the first thing that gets dropped is writing). Perhaps a part of me likes this non-structuredness, and not very committed way to doing things.
But every so often I seem to have the need to have a proper practice. I read how ‘real’ writers have routines and how they go ‘into the cave and sharpen their pencils’ even when not writing. I’ve tried several times to start one but never chased it seriously. Perhaps I need to process these two parts together, allow them to dialogue, but right now I just want to start one.
Several writer friends, and I mean serious and published ones, have suggested that I link writing practice to my karate practice, or at least take tips from that to develop this. The two feel very far apart though I know they are not. It wasn’t always so but now it is simple to keep the karate practice. There is a simplicity in the elements involved — basics, kata, hojo-undo, gym, group practice, and teaching. A certain number of hours every week which could be a combination of those elements in any way that feels right. I never get karate ‘block’ and nor do I faff on the day and time I am supposed to practice.
It wasn’t always so and perhaps reflecting on the process of how I got serious in karate might provide me more insight than looking outside to other writer’s practices. But it is fun to hear about those.
It’s been a disruptive time and the next weeks in Bombay will be more so, especially since we haven’t been there in so long, but I am going to keep a bit of my mind on getting the shape and elements of a practice going. I am making a list of things that could go into a practice and I am going to keep my notebook with me and make notes whenever and wherever.
Natalie Goldberg says, “One of the main aims in a writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and non-aggressive.” I think that learning to trust the body and mind was the exact process by which I came to a karate practice. May I succeed in this too despite the time of constant change.
No comments:
Post a Comment