On Oil and Magic

Photo by Ben Dutton on Unsplash

Some days, writing feels as if I have oil in my veins instead of magic.

Sticky. Thick. Dark.

I sludge my way through, somehow. And when I’m done, I am exhausted by the effort.

Usually, these are the days I’m wrestling with my words because the ones that want to come out are not the ones I want to share.

But creativity is a jealous mistress, and demands attention and veracity. She knows when you’re sticking with the surface out of fear of your own depths. So she protects those words and instead sits back and lets you fight through the fog.

If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you know that self-censorship is pretty much against everything I stand for with writing. And yet, these words today feel slow and brooding. But I am here, and I am taking gulping breaths for oxygen and bravery and keeping myself as open as possible to let the words know, hey. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Can you trust me?

Writing has always been a means of helping me understand myself more. The old adage is true: allowing yourself the space to find truth in between the lines happens when you least expect it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started writing something and by the end I think, “oh. There you are, Elora.”

These are the pieces that make me feel emotional. The words flow freely and quickly, as if I’m chasing them. The magic feels potent and everything turns iridescent.

The opposite is true when I hide. I finish those pieces with a huge lump in my throat where I’ve refused my own words. I sit and stare at the screen, erasing and reworking sentences for what feels like hours. The heaviness carries; oil in my veins holding everything together until I can’t handle it anymore.

When we edit our own soul, we are broken down into a million tiny pieces. We tell the words they are too much. Too open. Too bright. Too free.

Who wouldn’t want to be open and bright and free?

There is an element of integrity involved in finding and telling your story well because you have to be willing to find your own code. You have to be willing to stand up and say, “this is the way I see it, the way I’ve experienced it.”

You have to be willing to chase the magic.