On Empty Feeling Full

Words are the most powerful thing in the universe… Words are containers. They contain faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind.”

—Charles Capps

I sit and stare at a blank screen trying to conjure up words, craft a sentence, develop a theme. I find nothing new arises, except the awareness that I have used so very many words in my writing over these past days.

Early in the week, my words wove into a tribute to my mother on the 100th anniversary of her birth, followed by my El Camino memories crafting into a broader memoir, then continuing the arduous task of writing my life and complicated ancestry into a more developed timeline in story form for my kids and grandkids.

I realize that within this feeling of empty there resides a deep satisfaction in the artistry of words, flowing like a rhythmic dance, whether they mean anything to anyone else does not intrude. It is the feeling when I am lost in painting and it all connects, when the spices are just right in the dish crafted for dinner, or the tree, the sun, and the shadow align in perfect symmetry for the photo I snap.

Then, there is a moment of empty, a day of rest, or possibly the eternity hidden within the pause between each breath­­—a long moment to take it in, deep within, and ready myself for the next flash of inspiration. We can’t consume so fully every day. We need rest, contemplation, review, as a time to pull it all together and see the whole.

The truth of this comes to me as it has been a span of four years since I walked El Camino and the full review of my blogs, journal, and post trip review, reveal to me what I could not see then. They point to where I am today. They beg me to go deeper into an event revealing something in me or other that I could not see before. The pause has deepened my experience. The space of time has opened my heart.

Today, empty is a feeling of full.