Searching for Fertile Ground

I know I am in balance is when I have something to write about. Writing is my clear channel, my touchstone to myself reminding me that I am here and present and accounted for. I have committed to writing at least one essay a week that challenges me to think about who I am in the world.

I share that essay because it makes it true. I hit “publish” and release my truth. I let it go from my interiority because it makes it more real and true. It’s not just inside, but outside too.

Lately I’ve been blocked. I feel like I have nothing in me. It worries me. My weekly writing connection is an important part of my self-care and having nothing there is a red flag, an invitation to pay attention.

When I sit down to my writing practice, I feel dried up, barren, empty. I ask myself questions, “what is here right now?” “Nothing,” I respond. Yesterday I pushed myself, “What do I mean by nothing?” I asked myself.

I see parched earth, plantless soil. I write about that. I imagine a windstorm pulling away all the nourishing earth, seedlings and blossoms a distant memory from another world.

Last night at Passover, one of our hosts asked us to each think about what we are prisoners to in our own life. Immediately, I thought about my job. I spend too much energy on my paid work and that over-focus has rendered me lop-sided and out of balance.

I have always been a creative person. For most of my career, I had an idea, and I followed the sparks until they either ignited or fizzled out. But I always followed them. And that gave me joy. For a while, I followed sparks in my current job. I felt like I was on fertile ground, filled with the possibility of new growth and beauty. But I don’t feel that anymore at work. All I see is dry soil and no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem grow fruitful crops there.

Yesterday as I sat down to write, longing for the grounding, connected feeling that comes when I form my thoughts into words, the image that came to my mind was a dry prairie. It’s what I imagined when I read the Grapes of Wrath. And, like the Joad family, I felt hopeless and desperate.

For weeks I have abandoned my writing notebook, instead turning to my computer and stalking job sites. But I have missed writing, and yesterday I acknowledged to myself that the internal imbalance I was feeling wouldn’t change unless I did something about it.

“Stay here,” I said to myself. I closed my eyes and waited. I imagined a dust storm around me. I stayed there, eyes closed, waiting for rain. I imagined heavy raindrops hitting dry earth. I could almost smell the soil waking up.

In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joads had to leave their dry land and find a place with fertile crops. I feel like I have to leave too. I’m contemplating staying in the land of scorched earth and the dream of moving onto richer soil. I am considering the practicalities of leaving — setting up my team so they have an infrastructure when I go, figuring out insurance for my family, finding another job.

Like the Joads, to leave I have to be brave and migrate away from the parched earth of my job. I have to leave what is familiar and step into the unknown.

To leave is to face the challenges and struggles along the way, and to stay is to find a way to create growth in a place that seems dead. I want to smell the fertile soil again. I want to watch the tiny seedlings grow into maturity. I want to follow sparks towards joy.

Like it always does, my old friend writing helped me find my clear channel of truth. I’m at a crossroads, facing two paths — stay and work hard, till the soil, creatively feed my soul until the rain comes or leave, head towards greener pastures that may or may not be there.

Writing this out has helped me. I understand that, as long as I’m staying in my job, I have to work hard and commit even if it feels like I’m trying to grown beans in dead soil. Having one foot out the door, preparing to go but not actually leaving is what is draining my energy and feeding my imbalance.

I think about the Joads and their long, treacherous journey to California. They probably asked themselves a hundred times, “Should we stay or should we go?” When they left Oklahoma, they had no idea what was ahead of them. If they had, I wonder if they’d have gone.

In the end, things really weren’t much better for them in California than the life they’d left in Oklahoma. I think about the situation I’m in with my job. Should I stay or should I go? When the Joads left Oklahoma, they had no food. Their farm was in foreclosure. They had no choice but to go. I’m not that desperate yet, but I might get there. And when I do, I hope things go better for me than they did for the Joads.