I’m wondering how many times it will take. I’ve had this realization countless times. I’ve written about it here. I haven’t searched to find out just how many, but I’m sure it is an cheek-blushingly high number. Posting to Facebook doesn’t cut it. Composing lengthy emails to friends gets closer, but it’s not it either. I use these as placeholders. I feel their inadequacy, even when I don’t know it.

I crossed paths with a quote by a playwright/screenwriter recently that, often, reflects how I feel about writing: “I don’t like to write, but I love to have written.” Sometimes, while in the moment, I do enjoy it. Mostly though, the work of writing is stretching, awkward, and laborious. It is rewarding, but not in a instant-gratification-sugar-high kind of way.

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
-Joan Didion

Writing is similar to photography - it requires a consciousness. It asks me to be aware of life (and not just my own). It invites me to see it, record it, review it and breathe it in again a second time. The brilliant and magical part of it to me? The second time around is no less new.