I'm curious—

(it's a perpetual affliction.)

March 3, 2023—Waxing Gibbous moon in Cancer

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper.

Terry Tempest Williams

I think of writing as painting with language.

I choose words with attention to the shades of meaning they will make when I brush them across the page. 

I believe placing words in relationship to each other—whether on a page or aloud in a conversation, a speech, or a song—is an act of creation in the deepest sense of that word. One in which we are bringing into being a wholly unique moment. 

When you free words onto the page, you release a moment built from:

• feelings

• memories

• expectations

• life experiences

• the time in which you are recording it

• the relationships influencing you as you create

As a poet, I can’t help but love this

The moment is unique because those specific circumstances cannot be replicated.

To paraphrase Heraclitus, you can’t step in the same moment (he used a river as his metaphor) twice, because it isn’t the same moment and you aren’t the same person. 

But, when we root an experience in words, we create a snapshot, an Impressionist painting, of that particular moment in all its textures and colors and layers.

(I’m shamelessly mixing metaphors, I know, but I’m just going to roll on.)

On the one hand my assembled words are seeds I tuck in the ground of the world to grow nourishing plants for anyone who chooses to pluck a fragrant leaf or flower. 

On the other hand, the act of liberating words from the ground of my inner landscape nourishes me, eases me, reorients me in those times when life has spun me in a remorseless game of hide-and-seek.

I’ve been rereading When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams. To me, Tempest’s imagination makes this book a verbal tuning fork, helping me recalibrate my voice when I drift off key or constrict my throat and don’t let out my words. In it I find a wild-voiced invitation to liberate my word artistry. 

So, inspiration can rise from the moment itself, or be catalyzed by someone else’s words. For me what’s important is when I create with language, I am ultimately more whole both on the page and off. 

I’m curious, where do you find inspiration?

May your words liberate you!

Tracie

tracienichols.com