The Tea Ceremony

Since I stopped blogging regularly five or six years ago, I’ve written a few posts, but in fits and starts. Every time I think about starting again, I think, why? Do I have anything of significance to say? I no longer have any interest in writing about politics (though once in a while a fit of madness may seize me and I won’t able to help myself). Are my random musings worth the bandwidth they take up?

Then I think of a passage from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird that has stayed with me years after I first read it:

…publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to 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. (xxvi)

This blog is my tea ceremony. When I don’t write, something is missing. When I do it every day, it becomes habit, and it nourishes me.

Starting the blog in 2008 meant stepping outside my comfort zone. In the beginning, it was hard to hit publish, but each time it got a bit easier. And doing it led to amazing things, the blog a domino that knocked over another that knocked over another and so on until my life had changed in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

So I’m going to start writing regularly again. It doesn’t matter if it’s significant or meaningful or praiseworthy. It only matters that I do it. Because it’s my tea ceremony, and I need it.