Heart Ache and Loss

It’s been said, and joked about, that life’s greatest challenges provide fuel for writers. When bad things happen, we write our way through them; the pen becomes our coping device. But that doesn’t make the “bad” any better.

A few days ago, I witnessed a horrific car accident from a mere twenty feet’s distance. I watched a car spin out of control, flip in the air and come crashing down, taking the life of the young driver. Since then, it’s replayed like a film clip in my head and my heart has remained heavy. I can only imagine what his family is enduring...

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason, particularly not in tragedies such as this. But I do believe that we can give meaning to turmoil. One man’s accident can lead us to drive more carefully and cherish our lives and loved ones more actively. And our selfish efforts to cope through writing or other art forms might one day touch another.

I suppose that artists' ability to empathize and hurt deeply for others is duel blessing and curse. If given the choice, I imagine that most of us wouldn't trade our heightened sensitivity for any level of numbness. Would you agree?

Words of others can also prove medicinal:

"The true artist's heart searches not for treasure at rainbow's end; But is instead content to play upon the colour there-in."
Karen Sapp


"The heart is an artist that paints over what profoundly disturbs it, leaving on the canvas a less dark, less sharp version of the truth."
— Dean Koontz

"No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster."
— Dalai Lama XIV

Writing Cave

Time and conversation with loved ones is a prime cure for loneliness unless you are a writer. Don’t get me wrong—I savor and rely upon such connectedness as much as anyone. But investing too much time and energy into non-writing pursuits feels to me like being in the wrong relationship. (If you feel lonelier with him or her, it’s time to get out...)

And since gone are the days when writers simply wrote (unless you're fabulously wealthy or care little about those trivial things...rent, shelter and the like), the passionate ones create and prioritize time in our own "caves" -- places with little distraction, carved out of our ever-hectic, fast paced lives. My friend Darin is a talented writer by night and a physician by day. Ernessa T. Carter, author of "32 Candles," wrote her first novel by writing for 30 minutes every day and working 40-plus hours per week at a radio station. We all have the same amount of time each day and night to do with what we wish. Yes, we have obligations and responsibilities...but some of the most important ones are to ourselves.



"Of course, when one is faced with a canvas, one is no longer alone, and the sense of solitude diminishes. This can be an agreeable passage of time. In fact, solitude then becomes a kind of companion." Pierre Alechinsky