Searching

So much of my time is spent searching. For solutions to complex problems, for the perfect lesson plan, for the right text at the right time, for my gloves which mysteriously disappear and reappear when I least expect it.

I’ve been searching for the poem that blew through me one day while walking into school. The words of that poem found me and they created a pattern in my head as I strode into the building then dumped them seamlessly onto the page. I shared the words with a kind friend and she felt them, deeply. She found meaning.

Writing for me often involves a searching. I am blindfolded, arms outstretch grasping for the floating essence of something felt, grappling for meaning, giving myself over to some invisible force which propels me to put my deepest knowings into words, to share the exactness of my lived experience. Searching is never exact, and finding is elusive. Words hide, like my gloves, and then appear when I am inconveniently otherwise occupied in work without a pencil, without a laptop.

But, I suppose I must give myself over to this process. Perhaps, that’s the point. Searching is the exercise. Searching is a promise, a future hope of finding something which then disappears only to send us on another path.