Just Breathe...
"The writer must write what he has to say, not speak it."
- Ernest Hemingway
As I contemplate over the quote above, a quote that I've gazed upon everyday as it sits on my desk... unpretentious, unassuming, simple and clear. I think of it's meaning to me and how most writers must think and feel very much so the same. It's not that writers don't speak... but more so we feel in words, the simple fact is communication comes to us clearer in written form. The communion that I feel with God is certainly deeper and has more meaning when I write them out rather than speaking them out loud. The speaking still happens but it's the silence, the written words that are connected to the universe like a prayer.
While I was pregnant with my daughter I wrote to her almost every night in a journal I bought. The journaling was a direct conversation we had through thoughts...no words, no sound just thought. The importance of this internal connection became clear nine months later; while in the hospital just a day or so after giving birth to Jasmine I can recall this non-verbal communication taking on a lifesaving direction. One night I was getting up out of the bed to gaze at her (as all new mommies do) and also go to the bathroom. At that moment of gazing I saw my new baby gasping for air, unable to breathe... or maybe forgetting how... not knowing how, I mean my goodness she was new to all of this! Here I was lying in bed comfortable, not even having a need to really go to the bathroom at all but compelled to go sneek a peek and look at her, and now I'm watching my newborn suffocating on plain ole air. I quickly remembered what I was taught in "New Mommy's" class a few weeks prior, the instructor, a registered nurse, had told us if you find your baby unable to breathe simply breathe your breath into her lungs in one continuous motion of breathing. Eventually her breath will catch with your breath...so I did just that. She stared at me looking straight through me as if she knew I was there to save her life. I slowly and steadily breathed into her body, opening and closing her lungs for her, teaching her how to do this breathing thing on her own in the outside world... outside of my womb. I was her world in that moment, I was her creator, her savior, her everything. She knew that in my hands nothing would hurt her and that I would do all I could in my power to save her and would lose my own life to rescue hers.
I remember that moment vividly because even now I find myself waking up seconds before she starts crying. I can sense her shift in bed, I can feel when she's too hot or too cold... it's that internal thread, that connection that we felt before she was even born. I know, but more so I feel that same connection with God. When I write even before I put in a request for guidance I feel the presence already there. Times have changed, my life is different, the old me is dead and gone, but the constant significance between the created and creator remains the same. We are gasping for air several times throughout the day, forgetting how to breathe on our own for just a moment. The creator appears teaching us what we already knew and giving us life, making the divines breath our breath. Writing is life for me, its how I think and I how pray. The simplicity of it has not changed, I just forgot how to breathe in my new world... my daughter Jasmine has taught me this lesson, and I can't wait to see what she teaches me next.
Love & Blessings,
Buttaflibabee
- Ernest Hemingway
As I contemplate over the quote above, a quote that I've gazed upon everyday as it sits on my desk... unpretentious, unassuming, simple and clear. I think of it's meaning to me and how most writers must think and feel very much so the same. It's not that writers don't speak... but more so we feel in words, the simple fact is communication comes to us clearer in written form. The communion that I feel with God is certainly deeper and has more meaning when I write them out rather than speaking them out loud. The speaking still happens but it's the silence, the written words that are connected to the universe like a prayer.
While I was pregnant with my daughter I wrote to her almost every night in a journal I bought. The journaling was a direct conversation we had through thoughts...no words, no sound just thought. The importance of this internal connection became clear nine months later; while in the hospital just a day or so after giving birth to Jasmine I can recall this non-verbal communication taking on a lifesaving direction. One night I was getting up out of the bed to gaze at her (as all new mommies do) and also go to the bathroom. At that moment of gazing I saw my new baby gasping for air, unable to breathe... or maybe forgetting how... not knowing how, I mean my goodness she was new to all of this! Here I was lying in bed comfortable, not even having a need to really go to the bathroom at all but compelled to go sneek a peek and look at her, and now I'm watching my newborn suffocating on plain ole air. I quickly remembered what I was taught in "New Mommy's" class a few weeks prior, the instructor, a registered nurse, had told us if you find your baby unable to breathe simply breathe your breath into her lungs in one continuous motion of breathing. Eventually her breath will catch with your breath...so I did just that. She stared at me looking straight through me as if she knew I was there to save her life. I slowly and steadily breathed into her body, opening and closing her lungs for her, teaching her how to do this breathing thing on her own in the outside world... outside of my womb. I was her world in that moment, I was her creator, her savior, her everything. She knew that in my hands nothing would hurt her and that I would do all I could in my power to save her and would lose my own life to rescue hers.
I remember that moment vividly because even now I find myself waking up seconds before she starts crying. I can sense her shift in bed, I can feel when she's too hot or too cold... it's that internal thread, that connection that we felt before she was even born. I know, but more so I feel that same connection with God. When I write even before I put in a request for guidance I feel the presence already there. Times have changed, my life is different, the old me is dead and gone, but the constant significance between the created and creator remains the same. We are gasping for air several times throughout the day, forgetting how to breathe on our own for just a moment. The creator appears teaching us what we already knew and giving us life, making the divines breath our breath. Writing is life for me, its how I think and I how pray. The simplicity of it has not changed, I just forgot how to breathe in my new world... my daughter Jasmine has taught me this lesson, and I can't wait to see what she teaches me next.
Love & Blessings,
Buttaflibabee
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