Diagnosis

I have returned to woods and words.

Scooter and I have started taking evening walks (when there's time before dark) on the trails that start just a block from my house in Duncan Park. It's surprisingly dense and mountain-like once you set in, and the paths are already littered with leaves, the best kind of fall. And I let Scooter off leash to run ahead and veer off into the growth leading down to a small creek. He collects stickers and mud, and returns to me with his tongue hanging, happy with his speed and freedom.

I walk slower, breathing deeply the fresh air, and listen for rustles. I wish for more silence like this, so tomorrow I am going where there's more silence, where there are more trees, where the colors are brighter, where I can climb higher. I need it. I need it before life gets even busier and the world gets colder.

The last two months have been blurs of long days and big projects, short nights and deadlines. Even my journaling has suffered from a lack of energy for words, but I'm back at it, opening files and adding syllables, images, scenes. It's such a relief.

Times like these I recall something my grad school professor Michael L. Johnson said in a workshop. He said he was struggling with anxiety and went to a therapist. The therapist said, "How's your writing?" Johnson replied, "I'm not." "Well, that's your problem."

I hate to equate writing with therapy, but it is a path to well-being. For me, it is a necessity to a healthy mind. It is a need, a desire, a must. It is an occupation I must attend to, return to, live every day.

Finding your place in the world means finding or making a place where your needs work for you.
--from Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by Adam Phillips

 Tomorrow I hope to inch closer to my place in the world, both as a writer and a lover of nature.