Enlightenment in Ninety-Three Lines?

I've been thinking about finishing things. Books, work, email, an endless parade. Just now, while reading a book, I wondered how I finish writing each day's Morning Pages, three sheets of thirty-one lines each, a total of ninety-three lines to fill with blue ink.

How do I finish writing ninety-three lines each morning?

That led to wondering, how do I finish even one line?

Spiraling, as I do, I asked, how do I complete one word or even one letter?

And how does an idea begun in my mind become ink on the page?

I put these thoughts aside to finish reading the last paragraph in the chapter, closed the book, and asked again, how do I finish ninety-three lines each morning.

Then it came to me. I just do. I begin through one kind of miracle, continue through another, and arrive at the end almost as a matter of course.

It's no matter how I finish so long as I begin and believe in miracles the pen and I create.

So Many Books

I have too many books to read. Well, too many books that I'm in the process of reading. I get started on one thing and then interested in another. I could say I'm distracted, but I'd rather say I'm just interested in many things. This isn't much of a problem. I have enough bookmarks. Sometimes though, I want to minimize my life, focus on reading just one book, and get things done.

For Christmas, my wife got me two spectacular, long books. I couldn't wait to dive into them both. However, I had thirty-six pages left in a library book. This morning, I sat with a cup of tea and finished it. One down.

On my desk are two other books I'm reading. Four sit on my bedside table along with one I haven't started even though a friend lent it to me a year ago. There's a book on the dining room table I've been meaning to read and one in the living room that keeps calling my name.

Thinking of all this, I feel pressed to read them all, to be finished, to clear the decks, to be caught up. I feel the guilt of leaving things undone, of not being responsible and hard-working.

No matter what I feel, here's the simple fact: I can't finish all the books at once, today, this week, or even this month. So what's a boy to do?

This morning I knocked off thirty-six pages in short order and finished one book. Great.

But then I started one of those new books even though I had all those other books midway. I indulged myself and was glad. That book hooked me. It's gorgeous and I'm happy reading it.

Then, when I got to a good spot to stop, I turned to one of the books I had been reading, a short one I will likely finish today or tomorrow. The new book will wait. I may read more of it tonight, but for now I'm knocking off some backlog.

I'm investing in both the old and the new. To relieve the weight of all those half-read books, I knocked off one and will soon knock off another. At almost the same time, I'm indulging in new things too, balancing things.

There is always work to do, work I've chosen to begin even though I have more work than it seems I can handle. I get to these reckoning moments, when the things I've started crowd out the time I might be starting new things. The reckoning is a pause when I move from being carried along toward making my own way.

Life doesn't stop for me to catch up. Things come up and I can't skip or pass them over. However, that doesn't mean I can't attend also to the things I've begun.

Today, I noticed I'm out of balance in reading. I'm making corrections, bringing myself back toward balance while also digging into new things. I'll likely catch up on my reading backlog. I know this and I know too that I'll fall back out of balance, finding new things that interest me, more books to begin. That's fine. Better than fine, it's one more way that this life is made interesting.

I'm going to go read for a while now.

Finished, Begun, In the Middle

It used to be that I'd finish a book, add the title to a list I kept online, and write some sort of review. I felt that there were good reasons to do these things. Finishing books is wonderful. Listing books I've read helps me remember. And reviewing books is fun and maybe of some use.

Then I stopped doing all that.

Some of it was just ebb and flow. Back then I was still in a teaching job, the misery of which seeped into every part of my life. I decided to quit that job though I had no plan for what was next. There was a period of some unknowing.

That unknowing was bearable. The joy of quitting my job crowded out the anxiety of the unknowing. That and I found more time and energy for writing.

I considered writing as a job to replace teaching. To try that out, I wrote everything in my life, including what books I finished, to see if I could build an audience.

Turns out that writing for a living is a real work. I knew that, but trying showed me what I didn't know. I might have gone on with that effort, but a good job came along and I took it. Then a great job came along and I pretty much stopped writing and reading.

Though I'm nearly two years in, I still feel new to the job and put into it most of the energy I used to reserve for writing and reading. I've been waiting for that point at which I can come back into balance. Maybe soon? Maybe now?

Yesterday I wrote and posted a piece. Last night, I wrote a note for another. And there's this about finishing a book, coming out of one thing, perhaps returning to another, and alwasy being in the middle of all these things.

I finished John Green's The Anthropocene Reviewed and liked it. Now I've finished this and I like that too.

Weekend

I'm considering the trap of working twenty-four-seven because I can't keep my mind on the book I'm trying to read.

It's Saturday afternoon. I've been trying to read a book about writing but find my attention turned toward writing notes for an upcoming meeting, working on a budgeting question, and having to hire a replacement for an important position.

Early this morning, I took myself out for a run. Heading out, I wasn't sure where I'd go. I like to let each step down the road decide these things the way that writing each word of this informs the next words. I write to learn what I have to say. I run to see where I go.

Turns out, I ran across town, past my office. I didn't bring keys, so there was no going inside to see what I had left there to do. Instead, I looked at the place and smiled, knowing that it is my building, my organizations, my happy home.

Then I jogged back to my other happy home where, hours later, I'm thinking about working non-stop. I know better than to do that, know not to check or send email, know something about balance. It's not work-life balance I hope to demonstrate to my staff so much as life-work balance, with family and self primary.

I know people who work twenty-four-seven. That's their choice and may work for them, but it's no way to get the best for and out of the people who have entrust me to lead them, so, rather than obsessing about work, I've written a few words about it, metaphorically passing the office by, smiling at it, and heading back toward home, which, in this case, is inside the pages of a book about something unrelated to the work I do Monday through Friday.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.