Write as if you were dying.

This article from the New York Times was sent to me yesterday by a fellow writer, poet, and all around fabulous lady.  I'm so glad she thought to send this to me.  My brain has been spinning ever since.

Read the full article here: Write Til You Drop by Annie Dillard.  While many sentences and paragraphs jumped out at me, what hit me most were these: 

There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

It's funny (although it's actually perfect) that I just read this because my brain had just bee trying to form a little snippet of poetry similar to this idea.  Something along the lines of, "I want to give you everything.  I want to show you everything I have, and everything I know.  But I'm afraid that if I do, I'll have nothing left for me."

I'm wondering about all of this.  John P. Shanley says, "what you leave out is the story."  And boy, if that's true do I have a story for you.  And boy, if I found out I was dying it would be yours.  Now.  Today.  It would be urgent and it would be out.  But I'm not dying, and I'm afraid to reveal.  I'm also afraid that I'll never reveal.  Is that the fear? That I could die without my story being told?

I have more story.  All that I leave out.  My most personal trials and tribulations.

I also have what I find interesting for reasons hard to explain because I've never read it on any page.  Do I try to explain it? I thought of that last night, actually as I watched the moon for a very long time.  Why the cosmos stir me the way they do.  Why cosmology, astronomy, and science seem the most crucial and important way a human could spend a life.  What I am so inherently sure of when I'm watching the moon without knowing as fact, other than I just know.  Why I have a strong pull to leave the earth.  To see it from the outside.  Why it feels familiar.  Why I know I've been there before.  

So where do I start? 

And what do I do?

How much of myself should I give to you?

Deena Marie

John P. Shanley

John P. Shanley the playwright has the best Facebook updates of anyone.  Ever.

I didn't know when I saw you that you were engraved in me forever. Before they built the house where we first embraced, the land there waited for our arrival like a mother. I watch white clouds fall from the sky. The sea hesitates between tides. The sun itself seems uncertain. There is a gathering up of the powers. What is this finite silence that fills me with dread? It's not the future I fear. It is Now. Bring me Tomorrow.

The energies that govern us, come from us. The greater energies that we witness from our own obscurity, confirm an overarching Spirit.

When the prison is invisible, the escape may also be invisible.

On my way to you, I walked through a rare perfume. It conjured a night undone by days. What makes us too weak to forge a destiny? Why did you let me go? Why did I set you free?

What you leave out is the story.

The first daffodils escape the earth. A prison opens up its gates. Spring breaks free. That heavy heart rushes out towards the sun. You are forgiven.

What do you want? Love? You have it. Oh, you want to give it? Then do. But give it to those who want it. Don't impose your love., for love imposed is not love at all; it's pain you'd like to shed. But what should you do with your pain that's not an imposition? Jump into the sea and worship life.