I Blame Anne Lamott

I recently finished reading Anne Lamott’s book, ‘Bird by Bird’.  A book about writing.  An unexpected book that made me laugh out loud.  Summary of the writing advice, just write.  300 words a day, then go for a walk.  Her writing made me laugh so much, I forgot about the procrastination, the perfectionism, the general can’t-be-arsed-ism and am sitting down to write 300 words.  She says write what you know.  If people don’t like what you write about them, they should have been nicer to you.  I’m paraphrasing.  Write to write.  “Do the dishes just to do the dishes”, (that Zen gem is about resentment, don’t start me).  Today, I’m writing. 300 words.  I’ll not say I’ll do it every day, but then I never dreamed I would do yoga every day, and here I am.  I do yoga.  YouTube yoga.  Thirty minutes in the morning.  It’s lovely, and when there are a couple of annoying adverts, I drink my water and congratulate myself on how calm I can be when I try.  All those working years I thought I didn’t have time, but it’s nothing to do with time.  It’s to do with choice.  The main thing required to make choice, is peace and quiet.  Is that two things?  A noisy mind, overwhelmed with the blah of little life, becomes painful to make choices.  Now, I have peace.  I can ponder the hours, freak myself out about how much time do I have, what illnesses are brewing if I don’t exercise and tame my inner carboholic.  Or I can choose to get on the yoga mat and reach through my heels (turns out to be the key to many, many yoga poses, was I just not paying attention before?)  Then, write. 300 words.  Preferably not on the yoga mat.