Noted #5

not publishing, Sense and Sensibility, and the patron saint of phonics

I had a whole essay that I was set to hit “publish” on today. I’d been working on it all week and there was a lot of goodness there, but I just couldn’t figure out how to end it.

Instead, what I kept coming back to were these stanzas from John O’Donahue’s poem, “For One Who Is Exhausted, A Blessing”

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

That last bit has been echoing in my head all week. “You have traveled too fast over false ground.”

The essay would not have been untrue, but I think pushing to make it publishable would have meant I was traveling too fast over false ground — rushing to the end when I need to just…