A few weeks ago, I started writing my morning pages by hand after typing them for several months. Julia Cameron suggests writing them by hand for several reasons, but I’d always been too embarrassed of my handwriting to try. I enjoyed the process, and even came to (almost) like my handwriting, but yesterday, I went back to typing.
The nice thing about returning to something is that you experience it with a new perspective. As soon as I started typing it just felt right, and I spent all of my 750 words trying to figure out why. I’m sure part of it is that I’m still more comfortable typing than I am writing. It’s familiar; comforting. I didn’t think that was the whole reason, though.
As I continued to type I realized that I was doing so with a rhythm that wasn’t totally necessary. I realized that I was nodding my head, shifting my body a little. When I stopped typing for a few seconds, I noticed that my hands still wanted to move—to find something; conduct something. I realized that typing, for me, felt like beat-making.
A hundred words later, I noticed that I could almost hear the ambient music I might put underneath some spoken word. Some subtle tones just to add texture. A sharp cello as drama increased. An ensemble reaching a crescendo as my energy started to rise. When it did, my movements were more forceful, too. I felt energy running through me, and it felt good.
I don’t have much more to say on it right now, and I don’t want to turn this into a whole thing, but it felt powerful enough to me that I wanted to write it down. Profound enough that I’m going to stick with typing. I hadn’t realized just how much the act of typing itself—separate to getting the words out of my head at all—gives me life.