We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect. – Anais Nin
This quote and its subtle implications have been circling around me for years. For me it’s another reminder to be fully present in life and embrace all the varied experiences and emotions that inevitably come. Certainly we want to be aligned with the moment we are in the first time around, but it’s also good to know that nothing we do is ever lost. If something got missed or overlooked the first time, we can come back around for a second chance to dig a little deeper. We can always return through writing to the small ecstasies and powerful synchronicities and taste again the beautiful, and maybe not so beautiful moments whenever we wish.
Mentally reliving and writing it down are two very different things. Daydreaming lives only in the mind, it’s fleeting, and can play tricks on our memories. It’s doesn’t have the embodied quality that writing does and won’t give us the full flavor that comes when we revisit what matters with the heart as well. The body comes alive with those memories and their meanings as the words flow out though mind, heart, and hand. It is a visceral process and points to what resonates or repels with quiet efficiency.
Writing it out lets the words and ideas, feelings and connections, move through us on many different levels and layers and can change our minds about what’s really at the center of who we are and what we want. Writing can also trigger secondary or companion memories, and nuances or past discoveries long forgotten come streaming back. Writing returns subtleties that were lost in the shuffle of time and distance. The second tasting writing offers clarifies and concretizes what we know, and we can recalibrate our understanding and deepen our feeling the next time around.
Often it’s our most challenging life situations that circle around issues needing greater clarity or resolve. When we look again with fresh eyes and a calm demeanor what had us stumped can suddenly evaporate or make perfect sense. This is the power of journaling, it offers a grounded way to sort through what shackles us to old ideas and worn-out ways of being. It makes us rethink what we thought we knew for sure. The second tasting can shed some light in the darkness, and help to reorient the direction we’re heading in.
Life can go by fast and what matters most can be forgotten in a heartbeat. The deep love, presence of peace, or fleeting joys can be seen again, relived again, and tasted again through writing. Writing reinforces where we find meaning and gives us a chance to come home to the body, mind, and soul and see what truly lives there. Then we can decide the path forward and choose the foundations we build upon. A second tasting makes perfectly clear what stays and what goes, what moves us and what leaves us cold.
What do you want a second taste of?
kb
