How to be in it with all your heart? Van Gogh said, "I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart." I used to think that to truly be an artist, a writer, one must devote one's entire life to one's art. One must find a way to make one's art full-time, or to write full-time. And while this might be ideal, it is also extremely rare. I'm fifty years old, yet I've never attained this long ago dream of mine, which I've come to know really is a dream. Still, I've published nine books with another on the way, and am working on a novel right now. There is a line by the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski from his book Another Beauty that I treasure. He says, "It's not time we lack, but concentration." 

I've developed a habit of finding a morning here or an afternoon there in my week. I spot it at the beginning of the week, and then attempt to clear everything around those intervals. I keep a sharp eye trained on those hours and I keep them for the work of my heart.

There will be times when you lose heart. At other times, it will fray and the bones of it will be revealed, if the heart can be said to have bones. Lean into what you love, anyway. Lean toward this thing that you need to make. Concentrate on it, even when you're tired and busy and when you're not putting the actual pen to paper, or engaging in the creative process itself. Sit in the darkness and think about it. Before you go to sleep at night, think about what you want to make and how, rather than worrying about the bills you have to pay, or whatever workplace goings on.

Julia Cameron, the well known author of The Artist's Way, says, “Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise...As creative channels, we need to trust the darkness.” I think we also need to trust the light.

Looking at these photos of leaves I took recently, and the one below, which I took last year, reminds me that when we are hollowed out, brittle, thinned, when we persist in absorbing light, that when darkness arrives, it is this transparency we have honed that lets the light through. 

2016