On Januarys

January.

A paradox of thirty-one days.  One month.  One word.  Too many resolutions and too little time to turn our attention from the previous year to the one already underway, pulling us along before we are completely done with our past.  

Always divided with itself, torn between what was and what will be, just like the god it was named after.  Janus, that divine soul is one whose features are split in two for she must forever keep her gaze on the river of time that overlaps and circles itself so that a person may be at once here and there, both moving forward and stuck at a fixed point in the past.   

Let its divisive nature be January's strength.  When it tears itself from the strain of living the paradox of inward-looking winter and the promise of spring's emergence, let those ripped and ragged edges be filled with light.  Let the gap that has emerged from the tensions between your reclusive nature and your desire to experience this world be a passageway, a doorway to another universe in which your contradictions are the stars that illuminate your path, not the stones in your pocket that weigh you down.

And if you are lucky, you might even find nourishment in the space between one close door and another just waiting for your gaze to fall upon it so that it may wink into existence. Pomegranates, fat and full with garnet seeds, will sustain you as you travel down this new road. Each fiery drop you slip between your lips is a soul-seed sown deep within your belly to birth new intentions, sparks of light to guide you back to the eternal flame within yourself when the nights seem darkest and the path split in two.

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!

Writing is like Cooking

Writing is messy, messy work.  And the mess is half the fun.  

It's a lot like cooking that way. Think of it as this alchemical process of mixing ingredients (one-half cup of a dream, a fourth of cup of memories beginning to fade, a pinch of cheekiness, a tablespoon of sweat, and a rounded cup of time); spices (one saucy phrase, a heaping teaspoon of innuendo, a sprinkle of read-between-the-lines); equipment (saucepans and spatulas, fingers and keyboards); and of course, timing. You cannot make a respectable beef bourguignon in less than four hours, nor skip on the loving task of first searing your beef cubes and sautéing your mushrooms, carrots, celery, and onions before adding them to the stew.  

So too with writing.  Sure you can put words on paper. Many of them all at once.  But they do not come together to form a cohesive whole--that story come to life on the page--unless you have tenderly cared for them in batches and slowly added them to your alphabet soup.  

The spices are a different matter altogether--too much of one and you've lost your dish to the ever aggressive nutmeg or your prose to the temptation of alliteration.  Not enough spice and you have a meal as thin and unappetizing as gruel or underdeveloped backstories.  

This is nothing to say of the most potent and mercurial of ingredients: your energy.  The love and time and essence you pour into what you create.  There is no accounting for the tasteless feast you slaved over all day, following the recipe exactly, or the accidental perfection that comes from a few minutes of hastily throwing pantry odds and ends into a bowl.   Similarly, you can spend forever on a piece of work and it still feels as dry as burnt toast.  Or you can simply trust the hours you have lingered in the kitchen or at your writing desk and let the words come to you of their own accord, ready to make their mark on the page and produce nothing short of a miracle.

And like any dish, the final product (if such a thing exists) is built in layers, over time, and refined by practice (that word to encompass each and every kitchen disaster from the undercooked flan to the overcooked dhal).  Each limp string bean, a product of over-boiling, and each burnt salmon are lessons in balance as is each typo, each half-formed paragraph or each experimental tone that made it no farther than the compost.  Yet if we never risk a deflated soufflé or flaccid prose, we lose out on the potential for a perfectly risen confection of air, chocolate, and whimsy. The enthusiastic over-use of cumin and the semi-colon (or parenthetical asides) eventually lead to a healthy respect for using both in moderation.

All of this is by way of saying that writing is in the rewriting, just as knowing your way around the kitchen is cooking and recooking specific dishes and attempting new ones.  Once you have a recipe down, you must go back and refine it as you learn more about your ingredients and are yourself seasoned by life experience.  That is why this year, you'll find me marinating on the messiness--the beautiful, delightful, challenging messiness--of writing and rewriting my thoughts on the magic of everyday life. 

Enchantment Learning & Living is an inspirational blog celebrating life’s simple pleasures, everyday mysticism, and delectable recipes that are guaranteed to stir the kitchen witch in you. If you enjoyed what you just read and believe that true magic is in the everyday, subscribe to my newsletter below for regular doses of enchantment. Want even more inspiration? Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Here’s to a magical life!