Balls to the Wall

I think writing is a lot like yoga. You don’t always want to do it, yet there’s this guttural pull that, if ignored, may chew you up and kill you slowly from the inside out. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but maybe it’s not. 

It’s strange how much you can yearn for something—love it, worship it, need it—and yet sometimes, you Just. Can’t. Do it. There are days when you consciously skip it and others where you forget it as easily as you’d lose your sunglasses. Neither feel good. And to make things worse, no one will make you do it. No one’s going to pay you for it or give you a deadline or make you turn in your homework. Instead, when you reveal your shame for not writing/practicing, people offer flippant encouragement, “Oh, honey, it’s OK! Don’t be so hard on yourself.”  I don’t think that’s good advice. I think that in order to be a yogi or writer, you have to be hard on yourself. Really hard. Like balls to the wall. Steel or marble.  

Cracking the whip may make more sense for writing than yoga, but even the most seasoned yogis—hell, especially those of us who are seasoned—have had those feet dragging git-r-meditation-done moments. We’ve skipped our practice more times than we can count (so relax, new yogis, it’s par for the course), and have wallowed longingly after not stepping on the mat for a few weeks. There have been days when I couldn’t even muster the will to sit and take three simple ujjayi breaths. But then we come back. And we start again. 

The difference between writing and yoga is that with writing, you have to have something to say. Sure, there’s that incessant voice in your head that says all the things all the time, but that doesn’t make any of it worth writing down. With yoga, there’s always a breath or mantra or pose or place to sit. And if asana is your bag, you can stand up, start breathing and it will come (It will. Just follow the body). Writing’s not like that. You have to fucking sit down and type fucking words. You have to make the words happen and then put them together in sentences. You have to make the sentences over and over and over and over ad nauseam until something comes out.

Yes, of course both yoga and writing require discipline (or tapas, as the yogis call it). I mean, just because a meditation cushion is there for you to sit on doesn’t mean you’ll sit. Obviously. 

But I like to think that the day comes when you just write. And I don't know if this is true yet, but I’m toying with the idea that like my yoga practice, after all of these years of going back and forth and back and forth and doing it and not doing it and doing it and not doing it … one day it will just be here. And I’ll just be writing. Like that one time when, after 12 or so years of practicing yoga, I realized I was a yogi. And even though I sometimes skipped my practice, it was no biggie anymore, because it was just there and it's what I did. And all the shit went away and it was a part of me and everything made sense.

Do you think the day comes when writing is like that? Like one day you wake up and you're doing it and you're not arguing anymore? 

Pipe dreams are so pretty.

I guess to make it part of you, you have to do it and need it more than you don’t, which is like, the thing. You can’t fuck around with writing like you can with yoga (ex: I’m working but taking a mini break to breathe and do yoga at my desk, so yay! I practiced!). Writing is more concrete: Either you're doing it or you’re not. Either you have something to show for it or you don’t (even if no one ever sees it, which is also like, the thing, because most people will never see the half the shit we write). I think this is where I am now: I need it more than I don’t so I'm going to try harder than I did before. And I can’t say how or why that’s different than any other time, but it is. Because maybe now, if I don’t do it, it could eat me up and kill me slowly from the inside out. 

Sometimes I procrastinate by reading things about writing. Just write. I read about how others get through their blocks. Just write. I’ve tried Natalie Goldberg’s “ten minutes” practices and devoured advice on writing like a motherfucker by Cheryl Strayed.  Just write. (That Cheryl piece is good though.) I’ve stopped thinking about books and blogs and journaling and titles and first sentences. Just write. 

Just practice. Just write. 

Whether it’s yoga or writing, there’s one thing I do know. Once you walk past the resistance onto the page/mat, it gets better. Resistance fades into relief and ease like a stiff drink after a hard day, or the sun on your face after too much air conditioning. You never practice yoga and come out saying, “Well that was a waste of time, I wish I hadn't done that.” And you don’t finish up a writing stint and think, “I really wish I hadn't exercised my creative muscles and written that.” Or maybe you do. But really, you don’t. 

I’d love to imagine that from here on out, there’s just writing all the time. Practicing and writing, writing and practicing. Citti vrittis on a page, citti vrittis in sukhasana, resistance turning into unbridled flow. There’s a natural unfolding where it’s labor and pain and pleasure and earth and sky, and the birth of a new life becomes earth-side forevermore. Rebecca Willman, Yogi. Rebecca Willman, Writer. Rebecca Willman, Anything She Sets Her Sights On. 

We’ll see what comes, won’t we? A new day, a new moon, a new dream. Or maybe the same ol’ day,  the continuation of eternal cycles, and a dream long held. Either way.