Longing
For Fleet
“What are you longing at dear friend?”
Fleet, my writer friend, asked me this after reading my last post on my fear of goodbyes and my need to hold on to people and the past. He went on to say he’d heard all writing comes from longing.
Really?
Albert Einstein said, “Feeling and longing are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creations.”
Really?
I delve further and find there have been many artists who have created, written, painted, or sung about this prolonged yearning that cannot be fulfilled.
Matthew Arnold, an English poet, wrote:
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Fleet was on to something. What was I longing at? What were those unfulfilled desires and yearnings I couldn’t stop writing about?
I long for things to stay the same. I long for the past but not back to my childhood but a time when Molly and Kelly were children so I can do it right. I want to always believe in God, in Buddha, in a higher power. I yearn to know there is more to this life than this. I want peace. Yes, I want world peace. I want people to have full bellies and lives and be loved and give love. But I’m also talking about peace of mind, my peace of mind. If I don’t have peace, can I truly wish peace for other people? Can I? I want a quiet mind and soul. I want contentment, to be satisfied.
Really?
Fleet asked me, “What are you longing at dear friend? Then he said, “Write it.” Maybe that’s it; maybe I write so in that moment on the page things will stay the same. Maybe I write to make things right or to figure out how and why life went wrong and then to try not to do it the same way again. I yearn for answers. I hope by writing about the past there will be these answers and peace. I write to understand myself and the world better. Saul Bellow, a novelist, wrote, “There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.” Yes. Yes. Yes. And while I yearn for peace, I’m not so sure I’d be satisfied with contentment. I’m not so sure I’d want to stop my longing to write and to find the right words, to live a deeper and fuller life. In fact, I know this to be true.
I’ll leave you with Radiohead’s “Creep,” a song about longing and belonging.
What do you long for?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: BigLittleWolf says, “For me, sometimes writing is about longing. Sometimes, it is about learning. Often, it is about going somewhere else in my mind. A place that is safer, simpler, and where nothing hurts.”
Sweet, Linda, sweet. I hope you get what you’re longing for.
You’ve done such a beautiful job of telling us why you write. I love the part about finding a place where it’s safe and “where nothing hurts.”
I’ve read this post several times now. I do think longing lives at the base of many activities and musings – not all – but many.
For me, sometimes writing is about longing. Sometimes, it is about learning. Often, it is about going somewhere else in my mind. A place that is safer, simpler, and where nothing hurts.
It makes me sad that my writing is about longing though the minute I read your words I knew it was true, Michelle. I’m just a walking, talking, writing mass of memories glued together – longing for that little Linda to stick on the page and somehow watch my childhood appear before my eyes again.
I agree about writing and longing. Completely.
Beautiful poem.