The Tea Ceremony

Last night, as I lay restless with insomnia, I considered an excerpt from Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird:Some Instructions on Writing and Life,” and wondered how it applied to me.

“Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part. It’s like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony.”

This piece is a beautiful sentiment. All that Anne Lamott writes is beautiful—so gorgeous that I almost feel like I ought to give up this craft because the light my writing provides is nothing compared to Anne’s shining luminosity. I’ve felt what she describes here before, especially when I’ve written intimate and deeply personal pieces that I never intend to show the world. Some pieces are too personal to be exposed.

Recently, I wrote a short bit about one of my daughters. The prose itself was under five hundred words, but the impact the writing process had on me was profound. I had felt a deep unease, a suffocating tension like a heart attack for the better part of an hour. My life is hectic, and when I hold the child I pulled from my womb, after days of chaotic labor, and then placed on my warm chest to discover she was a chubby faced, blued-eyed girl, I feel like a part of my own spirit is there floating before me. At nearly three years old, she possesses the features or her father, but still, to look at her, I see myself. She lives joyfully, going with the flow when others would fight change. I rarely hear the word “no” from her—that is unless I’m asking her if she needs to use the potty—and when asking her if she’d like to join you in some boring household chore, the answer is almost always “ummm, sure!” She is an inspiration and reminds me that I should express my best traits. When I leave her, I feel like someone has ripped that bright wisp, a spirit that was once a part of my body, away from me. 

In my heartache, I put a bright blue pen to paper, hoping to relieve some of the pressure. I wrote a few sentences and suddenly, like the failure of the New Orleans dams, water rushed from my eyes, the tears so hot they nearly singed my cheeks. I continued to write, shooing my husband away when he kindly offered his comfort. I continued to write, even though my tears blotted out words on the cream-colored page, leaving circles of wet absence where once lay heartfelt words.

When I finished, I sat back and cried a while more. It wasn’t that I was sad; it was that I had just experienced one of the most cathartic experiences of my life. The pain in my chest was gone. I had taken the tumultuous emotions that had before burdened me, distracted me, and plucked them from my mind to create a beautiful piece of script.

But, although that writing of nonfiction experience was amazingly enlightening, my heart still lies in fiction. So, last night, as I fitfully turned to and fro, I wondered how this idea of Anne’s translates into fiction authorship. I’ve certainly had this massive emotional occurrence reading fiction, but I’ve yet to have this wildly intense experience in writing fiction—and that worried me. Now, I’ve definitely had a lot of fun, and I’ve been plagued with sadness over a character’s own turmoil but instead of weeping for them, I feel empowered and terrifically excited during the writing process.

Am I a sadist? I would feel terrible if there were some sort of Harold Crick/Stranger than Fiction thing going on here. No, I’m not a sadist; I just love the act of telling a story. It’s okay that there are sorrowful trials, because in the end, the story coming together in that one final moment is all that counts. It is the crafting of these tales that gets me going and fulfills me, but why?

Why is the act of writing a work of fiction so cathartic for me? Why do I feel compelled to do so? I have pondered this question for years, and even more intensely with my current project. I ask myself why I love fiction when I do laundry, when I’m driving into town, and, of course, when I reach for a book from my shelf. The only answer I can fathom is that I love to entertain, I love to be entertained, and I love the idea of something strange and new. This answer, however, does not completely fulfill my question. I still feel like looking for the answer.

And maybe that is why I write! Maybe that is why I need the tea ceremony—to create stories so that I might search through these outlandish tales to find myself!




* Update: So, I ended up posting that piece about my daughter for a blog swap. If you are interested, you can find it here.

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