Two brilliant bloggers have raised me up this week. That’s me at the top of the mountain, waving hello and beating my drum.
Al’s post over at the Fibro about making time to write really struck a chord with me. Not the bit about feeling like I should be mothering 24/7 and not doing stuff for myself. I don’t feel like that at all. I reckon I give my kids plenty and the rest is up to them while I get on with other stuff.
No, the bit that did it for me was the “if you have stories to write, then write them.”
My whole life there have been stories bubbling inside me, like a fragrant hot pot (or a cauldron, depending on what you think of me!). I’ve never ‘had a book’ in me, but making pictures with words is what my head does every day. If you’re with me and we’re chatting, I’ll be weaving language in a way that probably sounds a bit odd, but the need to create something special with words means I just don’t quite talk like most people. There is poetry in every moment and my mouth wants to loll it around and suck it away.
Then I read Kootoyoo‘s post for justb about marching to the beat of your own drum, and I confessed that I often forget to stop and listen to my own drum’s rhythm. Finding the quiet we need to hear our drum can be so difficult. It’s pretty much impossible when life is good and you’re happy and you’re madly dancing to everyone else’s beat.
But take a moment, every day. To be still and calm and simply listen. It’s easy to block out the noise around you because beautiful music is playing within in you. Can you hear the marching band?
I marched with my band in February this year and I’ve been marching ever since. Now that I’m ‘a writer’ and I get to ‘write for a living’ (I still can’t remove the inverted commas, sorry, not yet), I feel like I’m finally getting paid to be me. I feel purposeful and delighted and whole and I’ve silenced a yearning that has always been inside me, so quiet that I could barely hear it.
That yearning was the beat of my drum. It’s the best rhythm I’ve ever danced to and it’s been inside me all along.
I’m so glad I paused to listen. I’m so glad that I’m writing my story.