Writing through

I figure I ought to say a word once in a while about why a person might write through something they call a crisis. I don’t really know why I write, and I don’t know exactly why I stop when I stop. I don’t stop very often. That’s a clue, I guess, to the crisis heating up.

But I know why I read people who write through crises. I read them for the company. It’s a lot like visiting a field a geese. You listen to them talk. You don’t know what they’re saying, but you feel as if they’re speaking your language. You feel as if you’re visiting. You feel as if you’ve pulled to the side of the road with them and that you’re waiting, along with them, for repair, and that it’s going to come. You know it’s coming because you’re hearing the voice of the one who lived through it to tell the tale. Doesn’t matter if the crisis is inner or outer or both, if it’s the same as your own in any detail. It matters that the feelings are the same though.

The words of crisis matter more than the conclusion. In fact, you’re kind of relieved if the crisis doesn’t get summed up and solved, although you can’t say why. You get a sense of the on-going nature of living with change, and of the way it feels, and an appreciation of the days, here and there, that it doesn’t feel front and center, when you rest.