I just read an essay on NWP with the title of this post. It drew me because I feel a little asleep, but not sleepy. The author (Grosskopf) writes of how writing daily made him live his life differently: more aware and more alive. I know daily writing can do this, yet somehow I let days slip by without writing. That isn't altogether true either. I write, a lot, everyday: emails and grocery lists, syllabi and assignment prompts. But that kind of writing doesn't do what the writer of the article explained that regular reflective writing does: help us live life well. Not as somnambulists. So, when I read the essay, I thought: I need to get back in the habit. I need to carve out the time again. I wrote daily during Summer Institute--and it did, indeed, make me more aware of life and the moments that matter. This photo is one I took during our walk-and-write--when we stopped in Tangie's for a place to write with some atmosphere. Did the sweet roll taste better because I wrote about it? I don't know, but I know writing about it made me pay attention. And that is what I know daily informal writing can do: make me pay attention to life. So, here I am, back to my goal of writing daily and hoping that, like the author, I will, through daily writing, find "the bounty of inventiveness, and a heightened sense of possibility in my every day." And maybe another sweet roll, too.
