On the Merits of Avoiding Writing...

Yellowed leaves are cliff-diving off the higher branches today. Enormous peer pressure must be in play: They're all doing it.

Meanwhile the squirrels are on meth. Who cooks it up for them? Where do they find the $40 to make the buy? Somehow every squirrel in this area has gone erratic and irrational --- and at very high speed. Thank God they can't drive.

I am on my patio at the moment, avoiding writing. Surrendered to the serene, I let the canopy of the trees and the chatter of the sparrows and the warmth of the sun carry me off to better places.

Out here there are no words, just wonder.

Well perhaps a few words. Dorothy Parker's poem floats up in my lazy memory: "Summer makes me drowsy, Autumn makes me sing. Winter's pretty lousy, but I hate Spring."

Exactly. Just now summer is reluctantly passing the baton to autumn. So when the clatter of keypad becomes too much to bear, I flee outdoors to learn from Nature. Nature which, with the exception of today's squirrels, is so enormously patient and forgiving.

Outdoors between musings I'm reading a wonderful new book, God Hides in Plain Sight, written by my friend and college cohort, Dean Nelson. Dean tells everyone that I gave him his first job in journalism; it's at least partly true. I was the editor of our university newspaper and I hired Dean to write occasional columns on topics of his choice. Today he's moved on to The New York Times.

Quoting Walter Wangerin, Frederick Buechner, Anne Lamott and others, Dean explores the Christian sacraments and teaches us how to find the holy amidst the seemingly mundane moments of everyday life. Dean has crafted a brilliant book, the kind where you read a paragraph and stop, thinking for a while, and then eventually you go on. Pick up a copy today; you'll be glad you did.

Are you avoiding writing? Choose a wiser way to do so. Learning from Nature, reading a great new book or a classic older one, these are helpful occupations for anyone who loves words. Over time the quality of our output is greatly affected by the virtues of our input. Until someone develops "CSI: Oxford" there may not be much merit to staring at the tube for hours.

Grab a great book like Dean's new one. Run outside and jog your memory. Bundle up your kids or someone else's and take them out for ice cream. Doing any of these things --- while being observant and fully present --- will help to feed your inner writer.

If you're an advanced lifelong slacker, ignore this lame advice. But if you're driven and tend toward perfectionism, if you're borderline OCD and self-critical by default (i.e., if you're a working writer) perhaps right now is an ideal moment to avoid writing --- if you can find a good way to do so.

Slip away outdoors. Curl up with a great book. Feed your soul. At some random unplanned moment in the future, your soul will nourish you in return.

Isn't that exactly what all of us need?