Love, Run, Write
A Wandering Essay
My body felt like molasses as I took my first step running in my hometown, Xingtai, China. After five days off, the running motion felt odd and foreign to the body, as if my limbs were out of sync and I had to relearn how to run again.
I wasn’t very consistent with my Substack publishing in the past few weeks since I had recently closed on a big project (more to come on that!), and because of some last-minute preparation before we took a family trip to China. I had also taken a six-class writing class called Summer School with one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott. Lamott had some of my favorite writers on to talk about the craft of writing: Daniel Pink, Maggie Smith and Jen Pastiloff (whose work I wasn’t very familiar with). I was not-so-surprised to hear that, like many crafts, writing has only a little to do with one’s innate talent, but more to do with fending off distraction, creating a consistent routine, and quieting one’s inner critic. Even for very established writers like Dan Pink, writing that first shitty draft is still painful. Lamott reminded everyone to never wait for inspiration to strike. Oftentimes, it is writers who overcome their perfection tendency that get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.
Get it out. Get it down on the paper. So much like running. One foot in front of the other. Don’t think, “I don’t look like a runner.” Just run at your own pace.
Speaking of getting your words out of you, I felt compelled to quote one of my favorite writers/runners, Matt Fitzgerald. He recently wrote about his superpower, his hyper-fixation of writing. Perhaps the most prolific writers of our time, Fitzgerald describes it as:
“If you want to see me lose my shit, stick me in a traffic jam or a crowded waiting room or take your time responding to an email I need you to answer in order to complete a project. If I ever get stuck between floors in a broken elevator without my laptop I’ll burst into flames out of sheer frustration, killing everyone.”
As I nodded yes to his obsession with writing, I reflected on my own obsession. It is with productivity and learning. When I told my therapist Mark that I simply had to listen to Ezra Klein’s podcast or MasterClass as I swept the floor or put the dishes away, he said, “Jinghuan, when do you ever let your brain rest? When do you let your mind wander?”
Wandering has never been my strong suit. I thrive on to-do lists and a survive-and-advance mindset. However, in my relentless pursuit of productivity, I’ve found my purposeful wandering, poetry.
INSTEAD OF DEPRESSION try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don’t even dream. It’s okay if you can’t imagine spring. Sleep through the alarm of the world. Name your hopelessness a quiet hollow, a place you go to heal, a den you dug, Sweetheart, instead of a grave.
You might’ve guessed. This beautiful poem is from Andrea Gibson, who passed away at the age of 49 on July 14th. Their death hit me unexpectedly, even though I knew that dreadful day would come. As I re-read But as you as you loved me,/all my callous went away./My hands so soft it hurt to pray. Let/your heart break/so your/spirit doesn’t. In the end/I want my heart/to be covered/in stretch marks, I sobbed to their cosmic capacity to love. (In an alternative universe, I would’ve been married to them… or would’ve been one of the four exes at their dying bedside.)
So many writers I admire like Sonya Renee Taylor mourned their death. In my Instagram feed, I was surprised to see many celebrities reminiscing their legacy too, like Arianna Huffington and Maria Shriver. The best short tribute came from Michelle MiJung Kim. “Thank you for keeping me soft, loving and here.”
Soft, loving and here. Without the constant burden to prove that I am a runner and writer. Free of my guilt of letting my mind wander. Off the shackle of pathological productivity. Brave enough to say,
I’m just here, to love, run, and write.