Since I started doing this solo practice thing, I have been really hard on myself. My return to this very blog is a testament to this. I've been wondering whether I am good enough or smart enough or disciplined enough to pull this whole thing off, as if it's some coup d'etat. To hear my lawyer friends speak of it, apparently it is a coup d'etat of sorts. "Brave" is word that has been bandied about like it was a tennis ball at the US Open. Clearly, I haven't FELT very brave. If anything, I have felt the opposite lately. Quite often.
I have spent a lot of time in my own head and here in this airspace questioning my voice, the very thing that led me to this decision in the first place. My voice has been something that I have always followed, from the time it told me that I would go to college on the East Coast at the age of 6 to it kicking me out of bed this morning to keep my newest resolution- no television during the day at all now that the Olympics are over- and drag my sleepy butt to yoga. (Why was I so tired? Well, I had stayed up late watching the Monday evening programs I DVR'ed last night because i knew that they couldn't be viewed on my lunch break today.) Along with this resolution was also the companion resolution to stop bullying my voice and just let it find its way again, dammit.
I got up and onto the train to make it to yoga class where I found myself, for the second time in a week, in the middle of what I refer to as "bossy boots" yoga instruction. "Set up the mats this way- no, closer together." "If I don't hear you all breathing together, we are not moving on until I do." Needless to say, this is not my cup of tea. I'm all for discipline, as everyone knows, but if yoga is about bullying, why not just take a kickboxing class. I go to yoga to quiet my discontent and competitiveness, not intensify it and cause me to resent my fellow yogis because SOMEone can't effing breathe correctly. I mean, isn't it called practie for a reason?! So, there I was, already seething before the class started and wondering why I had listened to my stupid voice telling me to roll out of my nice warm bed full of nice warm sleeping animals and drag myself through the decided not calming subway ride to get here for a bit of quiet. I tried to calm my mind and tell myself that there was a purpose to this. And then, the minute class started, it was right there. I'm not talking about some blue spirit or zenlike transcendent state; I'm talking about music. The first song that came on was "My Sweet Lord," the very song that I have been trying to write a legal blog post about for the past several weeks. The attempt has been stilted and painful, halting and full of doubt. It's like a wrestling match with my personal self and my professional self to get the tone , to not speak too casually, and, well, to get the damn thing right. And my spirit has taken a few punches in the process.
And then it occurred to me: I have been very lazy and undisciplined in my writing habits. No wonder I am nervous about the piece or any writing, for that matter. I'm out of practice. There are huge chunks of my life in NYC that are now missing because I got out of practice with journaling and chronicling. When i was in college, when I was traveling Europe, when life felt more free and easy, I used to write in my journal at the end of every day or at most, every other day. I used to take the time to write down my impressions and when I felt like putting together something bigger or more formal or "presentable," I would look back at these entries to refresh my recollection. Writing sort of fell by the wayside right around the time I started seriously considering law school and has drastically deteriorated since. Sure, there are times when I have sworn that I would resume, like here on the blog- a portable journal that i wouldn't have to carry around- or taking the time to pick out new journals to write in but being more concerned with the thing itself than how it got filled.
So I am done with promises. I can only ask for strength and guidance to follow through with my intention to take up the practice (see, there is that word again) of writing, not in order to coax my voice out- it's still there and it's still strong- but to remind myself what the voice says. To work on it like a newspaper editor works, diligently proofing but retaining the underlying tone, spirit and weight of the words. In short, adding writing back to my "Just Do It" list.
