Writing Zen

When I write well, by which I mean when it comes easily, I go into what is almost a meditative state. I can feel my muscles relax and I can feel my body do a sort of electric Zing! I feel highly alert, yet completely relaxed. I am fully open to explore what I’m writing. If it is sad, I sometimes cry. If it is sexy, I get turned on. It seems to me as if an invisible river courses just above my head and all I have to do is to reach up and tap the flow.

Tim was talking to me last night about haikus and he told me something that I think can be applied to most writing, and all poetry. He said that one method of judging the poem is considering whether or not the poem assists the writer and reader in living in the moment, in recognizing and experiencing the world as it is. What has passed no longer exists. What is to come doesn’t exist, either. All that really exists is what is happening now.

I haven’t been running lately. I’ve instead been trying to keep this virus from smothering me in the night. This marathon is bad for living in the moment. It looms. I worry. I wish I were doing anything but having a cold.

Writing seems to contain my only Zen moments these days.

Oh, okay, Tim, there may be a few others.