The Courage to Write

I have been thinking a lot about fear lately. It would seem that when we finally get the chance to claim what we want we go through this moment of intense fear. Who are we to claim true happiness, who are we to be so great? But if we let fear get in the way we lose every chance to achieve our goals, our dreams, our inheritance. I love Henry David Thoreau. For some reason those Trancendentalists really do it for me. But my dear Henry said, "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined." What would happen if we actually did that? What would happen if I actually did that? It took guts to go to grad school. Then it took guts to leave my beloved valley and go out to teach in a place where I knew no one. Now have to chance to really do something I have always wanted--write. But the fear ties me up and I don't write, even though writing centers me. It grounds me like gardening has grounded my female ancestors for centuries. My great grandma was an amazing gardener. She spoke to her plants and they responded. It was like her very presence coaxed them from the ground. My grandmother is also that way. She can make anything grow. My aunts and my mother say that gardening is the best free therapy that there is. For me, who am allergic to all things living it would seem, my gardening is with words. I talk to them and I coax meaning out of them. I play with them and sometimes I use them as weapons. It is a fearful power. But one that demands use. It also demands courage. The courage to write what is truly in me.

"Make no small plans: They have no magic to stir men's souls." Spencer W. Kimball