The monster at 4 am, he is coming to get me.
He’s lurked around all night and woken me up at 4am, whispering at my ears. He’s come before. So I recognize his voice.
“Why are you still sleeping? So much to do and so much to write. You are running out of time.”
“Who are you? I have a happy life with a happy family. I am doing important work, making an impact in this world.
“But did you forget that you used to want to write so much? Make sense of the world around you, and make sense of yourself. Your life. It was your PURPOSE. You were meant to be a journalist a writer. “
“Nope, I wasn’t. There is too much ego in this writers’ world, or at least the nonfiction writers.They write because they want to be famous. They write to be loved. They are screaming look at me, me me me. I am beautiful and I am smart. I do not need that, I wouldn’t say I liked that. I have my family and my friends to love me. I don’t need to call attention to myself now. I have too much on my plate, in case you didn’t notice. And it was too much details to remeber and to distract my ADHD mind anyway. Too many deadlines (and procrastination). It was not good for my mental health. I quit for a reason. “
“I am not asking you to be a journalist again. What about journaling? What about family newsletter? What about sit down, and write about that moment when the leaves of that tree in front of your porch fall like a golden rain. The moment when Ian took his first steps. Wobbly giggly , he walked toward you and smiled a big smile. The moments that hit you like a lightning bolt. “
“The moments that hit me… there are too many to count… but I lost them.. I can’t seem to remember that many now. Sorry, my memory gets worse as I get older, it was never good anyway. I quit journalism and writing partially because of that- I couldn’t seem to recollect those details as well as others. But without those names, textures, smells, writing ain’t good writing. I was Incapable and was never going to be top of my game. I was good at making sense and connecting dots, though. Construct meanings. I was trying to give answers. In case you didn’t notice, I write long reports to analyze things I still do. That was kind of my escape and outlet now.”
“Well that is good writing, and I am glad you are still doing that. You do that to make sense of the world around you or far from you, but what about yourself? Did you try to write to make sense of yourself?. Maybe you journal once in a while, but writing isn’t just there to make sense and solve problems . It is a pass to your freedom. You write to become free, To be ONE with that moment called NOW. It is how you are connected to that original source of energy. Your inner body. For others, there are other things, music. art. cooking. The kind of creative activities that uses ALL your senses other than your “mind” your mind that constantly try to analyze things. What about those poems you wrote when you were in college, the noons in that summer while you were listening to 迷鹿 over and over again. The lost deer by Wang Feng, and you had a can of Beijing beer. You pictured in your head that your new boyfriend was at the gate waiting for you, you were about to leap into something unknown, you were scared and excited at the same time.. and you felt your body was floating in the air? “
“Hmm. Not so much. I forgot how to write those words. Or perhaps… I forgot how to live like that. My life is different now. And it is a good one. I chose this. That insecurity part of your mind, that chaos, that feeling of not good enough, and those intense fights inside me were killing me. Maybe they got me writing -to get attention and to make sense, but they were not sustainable. “
Well, you don’t have to repeat those to get your writing going. You just need to get up and start to write. The way you started exercising. Put out your mat. Take off your bulky clothes and start to sweat. Don’t overthink. Fill the pages.”
“It wasn’t as easy as you said. Sometimes I stare at my blank screen or journal page, and don’t know where to start. “
“Just start, and give it a little more time. It will come. But you need a little patience. Allow it to grow in time.”
“Allow what?”
“That 6th sense. That sense has a direct line to God. He’ll write through your hands. You don’t write, something else write THROUGH you. At least that’s all the best writing I know of. “
“Hmm, that could make sense. But I’ve waited and sometimes it just doesn’t come.”
“Maybe you are just not being patient enough. It needs a little time, especially since you have not seen it or yearned for it to come for years.”
“But what if people don’t like it, and decided I am a bad writer and the world could really have one more good mother than a bad writer? “
“Who cares? Didn’t I tell you this is your pass to freedom? So it’s for your own sake? You write to shut off those chatty voices from your analytical and logical brain. They could take a break. It’s not healthy to have them on all the time. So who cares what others think?
Plus -how else are you going to get your daughter interested in reading and writing unless you are doing it yourself? If you want to be liked, have more likes on your wechat or faceebook, just keep posting cute kid pictures or cats in your house. But that’s not you “
“You have a point. Ok, okay, I hear you. I am getting up!” I mumbled. Put my sweater inside out. It was cold. A winter morning at 4:30. I looked at my Apple Watch. I must be crazy to listen to this crazy monster in my head. I’ve been resisting or avoiding him for the past 10 years. But then again its a holiday. Relax. Not much to lose. In the worst case, I just lose a binge-watching Netflix session. Or a Christmas shopping session. Or a therapeutic cooking or baking session. I calculated in my head.
And here I am, sitting in my victorian family heirloom chair, with a half cold coffee, at 5:40am, I couldn’t believe I just wrote for an hour nonstop. It came. And who needs a therapist?
Thank you, my monster at 4 am. Last few times when you came calling me I was so scared of you and ran away. So far that i forgot where I was, this time instead of hiding from you I listened to you, and i have never felt lighter.
