Natalie Goldberg Deck: Card #11
“You’ve finally eked out space to write…but there’s nothing you feel like writing about. Don’t pop up or pull a different card. Sit there for ten minutes, feeling your breath. Allow everything to be as it is. Just for now I’m asking you to be. Now write what you can accept with no judgment, no criticism.”
I’m working through the Natalie Goldberg deck of writing subjects. Each card in this world-renowned author and zen teacher’s Deck contains a writing topic on one side and a short lesson on the reverse, delivered in Natalie’s honest, heartfelt urgency. “This is my wish for you:” she says. “[T]hat you take these cards, grab the topic on one side and write, write, write . . . Remember no good or bad. Just words on the page.”
What can I accept with no judgment, no criticism?
- The enormous electric pencil sharpener I bought. Big enough to take up half the space behind my laptop screen. A kindergarten teacher should be the one using it. Or an art teacher. I only use one of its six sizes.
- The Verilux light I bought to make me happy. I only remember about .7% of the time to turn it on. I don’t even know if I believe it works. But I have it. And I’m practicing now. Practicing the art of accepting that I have it, that I thought it would make me happy, that I don’t hardly ever use it. Loving all that. Loving it.
- The crowd of objects on the little Container Store shelf in front of me at eye level. One one of the shelves (about 10 x 4 inches), there is a little glass ramikin with a half way burnt sage smudge in it; my mother’s clock that she always kept by her bed, unwound; a little rock that says “serenity;” a much bigger pink quartz rock; a 2GB Kingston card that looks like it might’ve come out of my Canon SLR camera; a voided check (sometimes I need to send it to professionals for one reason or another); and three little square postits hanging off the edge of the white plastic shelf, reminding me to file, reminding me what a task is, reminding me to upload tax files, and to keep writing the dharma book.
- The papers to my left. Bills I’ve paid, but am…
