The schedule is tough this week.  Late night rehearsals don't play well with early morning classes.  Usually my gigs fit together like a puzzle.  This  week there's a missing piece--sleep.  For years I've  arranged my schedule around afternoon private lessons and nighttime rehearsals.  That gave me the mornings for the usual--housework, errands, exercise, etc.   And one other thing that really keeps me going--my journal. 

Yep.  I started the habit more than 10 years ago.  Inspired by Julia Cameron's self-help book for creating, The Artist's Way I began to journal.  Instead of journaling she  calls it "morning pages" and it's a basic tool she recommends to help unlock your creativity.  As soon as I wake up I grab my caffeine of choice and a spiral notebook  and I write 3 pages worth of stream of consciousness scribbles.    Like every habit it was hard to get started; yet once I got going I've never wanted to stop. 

How do they work? Simply put, morning pages silence the Inner Critic.  That nasty voice inside that judges.  Holds us back.  Stunts our growth.  Morning pages allow the garbage to spill onto a page instead of festering in our thoughts.  They've given me so much courage and strength  that I almost forgot what they mean to me.  This fall I learned how much I really need them.

When the before-school class started in August the alarm clock rattled my system.  I gave up morning pages for racing through the shower and running out the door.  Always exhausted and drained, I   remember the fall semester like looking through a dense fog.  So many changes--losing my mother,  closing the doors on my six-year-old youth orchestra, gaining a completely new kind of job.  I tried to fit in my journaling on the weekends or when I got back home from school but it didn't have  the same cleansing effect.

Come January, I decided to get up 15 minutes earlier to journal before school.  It wasn't that big of a change in my schedule but the change in my psyche has been phenomenal.  Instead of hiding myself, I am reaching out.  I may be short of sleep during a philharmonic week but writing shuttles the bad stuff out of my head.  I am free to be.

The day I started this article I woke up tired, dragged myself downstairs and wrote my morning pages.  I whined and complained on paper.  And the more I whined the better I felt.  The words got more positive and the positive words doubled the creative ideas.  And like magic the fussy woman who rolled out of bed was transformed.   

It's been a long time since I've written.  I remember last writing in May, 2010, finishing up my school year tasks and then taking a very long break from the keyboard.  Life is always busy.  It's easy to get distracted by schedules and deadlines, routines and surprises.  Dashing from this errand to that appointment.  That's something we all share.  Our ability to live on the surface.

Well, deep down we also share the tough stuff.  When my mother died in March, I used this forum as a way to examine my feelings.  I put my head down and marched through the days and kept writing.  Sharing with anonymous listeners seemed to work for me.  It was a comfort to express myself creatively.  I was able to sit in front of my monitor and write and remember and cry. 

After school wrapped I hit the road with my husband.  We camped and hiked.  Outdoors is such a good place to heal.  You can't help but see renewal everywhere.  But when opera season started in June and I reconnected with my colleagues I found myself back in the depths of grief.  And I didn't like it.  I didn't like talking about it;  I didn't like publicly crying about it.  I couldn't face the vulnerable feelings so I stopped sharing.  Oh, it wasn't possible to ignore.  I did my best to work through the process privately.  I called on a very tiny support group and got myself to a place that felt somewhat sheltered from the pain.

That protection helped me through a fall that was bursting with new tasks.  It helped me through a Thanksgiving that was fraught with potent family memories.  And it helped me through a December that felt joyless and empty.   After the holidays I withdrew from everything.  And without realizing it, my shelter became a barrier instead of a safe haven.  

Two weeks ago, something changed.   Something caught my attention.  Encouraging words, a surge of confidence, a dream--who knows?  If I knew I'd capture the essence and save it for another time.  Whatever it was, I stopped, I looked up, I realized I don't have to carry this inside any more.  I can either hang on or let go--it feels like a choice.  Now I can reach out.