is the feeling you get

one older meaning of meta is, “in the midst of; in common with; by means of; between; in pursuit or quest of; after, next after, behind”

i’m telling you this because the why write question is meta, though not always. another meaning of meta: “after, behind; among, between” which i think is where the why, my why dwells.

i encountered some stunning whys this week.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs talked about her writing process:

Kate Briggs, a translator, wrote “The desire to write comes (is the feeling you get) from certain readings: the kind of reading that agitates you into making a trace of itself…..I want to add myself actively to that which is beautiful and that I lack; as we might put it with an old verb:…I require”2

awe and resonance kind of make me groan; like what the hell how did they do that. UGH. my god. it is an ‘agitation.’ when it’s that good, that on point, that precise, i feel like shut the fuck up—stopped in my tracks.

Briggs continues “this is the proposition: that the lines producing the initial desire to write are those that, in their irreducible, unalterable, necessary power, invite, open themselves up to, make a stage for the collaboration—the audacious counteraction—of the active force that is me.”3

someone at this call i was on a while ago said she’d been wondering if curiosity and love are actually the same thing, and this has haunted me ever since. and i wonder about the curiosity (love) guiding my longing to write, or show up, or keep going. and this reminds me that we can love(be curious about) beings/places/things we don’t necessarily understand.

i write because part of me trusts the surprises that will come, trusts the wonder, trusts how i’ll learn that i’ve been wrong all along.

what a terrific relief.