To The Process

My study in the summer

As a young writers, we talked a lot about “the process” and the need to “trust it.” Even though I wrote every morning before class, I thought the process was something bigger, something more esoteric.

When I trained for my marathons, I ran sometimes 40 miles a week, and still I thought I would never be able to finish. Our coach would say, “If you can do 20, what’s 6 more?” And I wanted to say, “Do you hear yourself??”

After my first marathon

From here, today seems daunting. Errands, a school project, grading, making travel plans, trying to find time for my family, walk the dog, run, a dinner with friends. Already I am behind. These tasks pin me to the couch. Another and another and another.

Writing, running, raising a child, whatever it is, the doing of it feels like a risk. Not a risk of right or wrong, good or bad, but even more simple: finished or not finished? I started, sure, but anyone can start. Did I finish?

But the process is present tense, -ing, not -ed. Writing isn’t the posts or the poems or the book; writing is the fingers pressing the keys, the pen on paper. The long pauses and then the fury and then the pause. And then the fury. Running isn’t mile 3.1, 6.2, 26.2. It’s my foot striking the ground, striking the ground. I pass over a bridge, by a field, through a tunnel.

Trust isn’t in the process, it is the process. It’s no bigger than my fingertips, no more mysterious than getting to the next moment. Finishing is part of it. But so is waking up and starting all over again.