A Writer's Journey

Natalie Goldberg's "Long Quiet Highway" awoke something in me. Her writing generally has this effect on me. I have read a few of her books on writing: "Writing Down the Bones" and "Wild Mind" which somehow make writing seem like the easiest thing in the world. Just put down one word after another. Don't stop to read it over or revise. Let images and senses and memories come to you. Something about her writing relaxes me, makes me stop and look around, and breathe. This book was more like a novel, detailing her journey from childhood to adulthood and struggling with finding her meaning, through writing, love, and through Buddhism and meditation.

Her writing is simple. Why do I like it so much? Because it is simple. Because of all the NOUNS. I love nouns. I love how a noun can evoke so much, and yet bring your mind back to the solid world of things. A white mug of black tea sat on the table by the stack of books. You see it. It brings you back to the moment.

One morning my husband and I had breakfast at a nearby coffee shop, then he drew in his sketchbook while I read "Long Quiet Highway". As we were walking back to our apartment down Piedmont Avenue holding hands, I saw everything around me and and noticed the way the leaves of trees trembled with the wind and how a dog scratched himself and bicyclists speeding past and the way the sunlight hit store front windows. At the corner I stopped and exclaimed, "I'm glad to be alive!" And it was her book that had reminded me.

There was another time I got angry at Natalie. She talks about trying out different jobs, one as a dessert chef at a cafe in Taos, New Mexico, where she was living. After two months there, she was tired of it. "When I returned home, I quit working at The Haven; I quit everything else I was doing. I wrote seven days a week for seven weeks, rarely leaving that little adobe on Don Cubero. I moved through the book. No resistance, no thought; I just kept writing."
As an artist, writer, and musician who has worked stressful food service jobs for almost ten years and wants nothing more than the freedom to pursue my art, you can bet that pissed me off. I threw the book across the room. How does she do it? She teaches workshops and she has published books, I guess that's how. It doesn't seem like it would be enough but it is. After I was finished being angry, I was inspired. I could do that, right?