What I think many don’t understand is that a writer is always turning back toward the writing. That we are either in that space, in that other space which we occupy alone, which we sink into with such reverence and need, or we are trying to get back to it, trying to understand and pull pieces out of the sky which belong to it.
We are an eternal return, an infinite homecoming.
It’s like we have a little invisible drawer where we keep the sacred special secret things and we keep bringing bits back: bits of nature, of emotion, of light, color, taste, texture, sound, impulse, desire, hunger, heartbreak, anger, fear, whatever – everything. Imagery, science, the painting on the wall in a dream – everything.
And we are trying very earnestly to make sure we don’t miss any of it, not one thing, not one blade of grass or shadow or skinned knee. Not one memory or insight or glimpse of this One divine thing which we don’t know, but we know.
We know and we don’t know, that’s the mystery, that’s why we gather so many things – we don’t know how or why but we know they go together, somehow. Somehow all things go together, they fit, they hinge.
All things, all creatures, all words are turning back into themselves, there is an order threading through the chaos.
We know it on some level which grips at the veins. That the puzzle has no edges but it does have seams and this is where the magic is, in the creases.
Somewhere in the fitting together of the random bits, we find peace, we find meaning.
We do not know where the work will take us, but we know this is our work.
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Allison Marie Conway 