Composting

When I first read this, I thought it said "Composing," but no :)
"Our senses by themselves are dumb" (14). Oh so true. This passage is about the waiting that writers must do. Betsy talks about a similar situation in yoga all the time. In any/everything people do, practice must happen for a skill, essay, or poem to shine through. We cannot, as Goldberg states, write about something as we are going through it. We must do so after we have some distance.

Of course there are paths, right? Like when my mom was slipping away, I was furiously scribbling about every intense feeling I had. Everything I thought and felt and wanted to scream and wanted to say poured into a hot pink notebook. For two weeks I laid on a hospital bed and talked to my mom through my notebook. At the time, I never thought I would survive or be able to do anything except think about it and about her.

Yet, here I am, and since she died I've forgotten many things I initially wrote about. I had to compost about her cancer for a few weeks, but wound up with a polished piece, but I haven't done anything with it. Perhaps that will come later as well.
There are many things about her that I haven't written about. Many things that have happened to me that I haven't written about or processed yet.
In yoga, Betsy says that I may work on shoulder balance for a lifetime before I master it. Many poses will never be entirely mastered. Many topics will never be entirely mastered. I imagine I will continue to miss my mother until I die myself. Some days less, and some days more. Maybe some days not at all. But, it is impossible to completely let go of something that shaped my core.

I imagine teaching will also be a thread I continue discussing, and as much as Barrie and Witt hate it, I will probably write about writing--at least while I'm looking at Goldberg, anyway :)
Raking through the surface level junk to get to the rich soil ready to blossom beneath. Just like everything worth practicing.