Hello beautiful human,
The jazz musician Miles Davis said (I’m paraphrasing here) when you hit a wrong note, hit it again, louder. Lean into the wrongness until it comes right.
Like a jazz musician with a pen (or a keyboard), these morning entries are improvisations in the moment. Life these days does not afford me a lot of time to sit on ideas, to revise and tinker. I get up early, I take a short walk (most days), I make the coffee, I write a few words in the spiral notebook I call my journal and then I come into the space and see what wants to emerge. I let the flow take me where it will and while I do tinker a bit for misspellings and phrasing, mostly I send it into the world with trust. I’ve been doing this writing thing a long time now. I’ve learned to trust the improvisational energy.
I used to give a bit of a side eye to those writers who would sit at a typewriter and write poems on request. Now here I am doing essentially the same thing. The Universe brings us around full circle. Stay humble. (And never say never—that’s sure to wake up some mischievous force that will almost inevitably prove you wrong. When you least expect it.)
Anyway, my point is…wrong notes.
Yesterday I wrote “I’m not growing anything. On purpose. I’m letting this Space grow me.”
That’s a bit off. A wrong note. Maybe you know how it feels to write or say the not-quite-right thing, spur of the moment unthinking, and then wish you could take it back. Maybe you’ve had those cringe-y moments too, and replayed them over and over.
It stayed with me all day like a pebble in the shoe or a crick in the neck. My first thought this morning was to edit it out, erase erase and pretend it never happened.
Then I remembered Miles. Lean in.
Some part of me wrote it, even if I disagree with myself. Even if I feel awkward about it. Explore that.
So…you know, I know, I am growing something here. Or rather, we’re growing it together. I show up every day and tend a Space and that’s intentional.
My gift, what I can do, my superpower (one of them), is to craft words to not only share my story but to create a space where we can more safely lean in to our wrong notes, to explore our itchy places, to find the pebbles in our shoes.
And…I’m also not “growing something” because I admit I don’t know exactly what it is that may want to emerge next. I’m listening. I’m trying to open a little wider each day. I’m trusting the practice and listening for the changes.
Want to grow the conversation and the connection? Here are some options:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to An Inviting Space to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.