Turning toward the new year

I keep opening my journal, then turning away from it. I keep uncapping my pen, then shifting my gaze from her sharp, beautiful tip and the thoughts she draws from me. When I do this, my heart beats a little faster. I feel the flutter just at the surface of my chest. I feel my teeth begin grinding together.

Today, I’m sitting here with the wide, blank page in front of me. I hold my journal propped up on my knees, my pen in hand. I want to duck away. I do. I turn away from the page to make a sponge for a New Years bread, measuring, pouring, letting my arm feel tired as I stir one hundred times, as instructed in the Tassajara Bread Book I’ve swiped from my childhood home. The sponge is rising now in the oven.

I come back to my journal. Again, I shift away. What’s on Instagram? What’s behind that glittery, bright scroll of color and ad and desire? What might I find behind that seductive screen? I feel the pit growing in my stomach and the high, rapid murmur of my heart. I turn again toward the page. I see there, the two attempts I’ve made to put pen to paper here since Christmas. A criticism almost rises to my lips…How can you let yourself drift so far?

I almost turn away a third time, but no. My pen is heavy and warm in my hand. The sky is gray and the birds have found the feeder I filled just days ago. The rain-snow is coursing down like thin silver threads. The drops stand still and glistening on the tips of the bare branches. There is silence in my home. I soften my breath, place pen-tip to paper, and write. Immediately the swirls of desire, pain, hunger, stuckness, gratitude, confusion, doubt, fear rise around me like the steam from the surface of a tea cup. I want to turn away. I want to stay in the shadows. I want to be soothed by something far outside of me. I want…I want… I want… I want to take a deep, deep breath. I want to let my exhale escape in a long, loud moan. I do. It feels so good. I do it again. I take a long sip of water and relish its coolness flowing down my throat. I take another breath, deep into my lungs, let my exhale come out loud. I smile to myself. I know what I want. I want to keep this pen moving across the page. I want to share it. I want to feel the thrill and fear and comfort of my words, no matter what they tell me. I want to risk being seen. I want to feel my feet on this solid ground and turn my face toward the ever-shifting sky. I want to let the tiny drops of rain course through my hair. I want to turn from the glitter and buzz on the outside—that fickle, hungry, drowning parade of images. I want to turn toward the quiet light that burns and brightens and warms. I want to feel the heat growing.

Inside my oven is a bowl filled with yeast, water, honey and flour. The pilot light is on, providing steady warmth so that this simple combination of ingredients can grow, expand, reshape and eventually nourish. In my hands is a page filled with words and a pen poised to keep going. A prayer rises to my lips: May this coming year be the one I turn toward the heat, the light, the warmth inside. May my words alchemize and activate my own turning toward. May I sit through the turning from and risk the dark and the fear I must walk through. May my own rising journey become a nourishment.