It’s the journey

Recently, on one of my very rare do nothing day, I watched the film Wild with Reece Witherspoon. This film is based on Cheryl Strayed’s Memoir, in which she

 decides to hike more than a thousand  miles of the  Pacific Crest Trail, alone, as a  way to heal  herself following her divorce,  the death of  her mother, and years of  reckless,  destructive behaviour.

One of the quotes which stayed with me is  a verse from Adrienne Rich’s poem,  Power- about Nobel Prize-winning  scientist, Marie Curie. “She died a famous woman denying her wounds denying her wounds came from the same source as her power.” I kept thinking about this line, over and over. How this woman suffered terrible wounds – physical wounds which she saw, felt, experienced. She suffered mental wounds – grief – after the death of her mother, fear of the unknown, loss of courage- through thoughts of giving up, memories of her promiscuity – which ruined her marriage, dread, vulnerability – exposed to the horrors or nature and mankind, mistrust and so much more.

And you could ask, well why did she do it? No one forced her. Couldn’t  she just go to see a counsellor, like people do? Why did she think that travelling those miles will help her come to terms with herself or take her where she though she should be in her life? But  was it just about the destination? If that were the case, she could have done a coach trip, travelled by air-plane, train, car. But it was about the journey – the whole experience and all that it involved, all that she encountered along her travels.

And so it has been for me, with the writing process.  What started as my desire to tell a story – which I felt I wanted, even needed to tell – turned into a personal challenge and the journey of writing and completing this story. Getting it published became my personal goal, my destination. I could have taken a different,  shorter route, let someone else take me there (it almost happened), but for me, it has not been solely about the destination. It’s been about the journey. The experience. The lessons. Gosh, I am still many miles away from my destination, but I have to search and find my source of power. I think we all have our source of power. We just need to reach within. For some of us, it a deep dig to access this source. But we must find it and use it. Make it work for us.

As I finished scribbling this piece, I switched on the radio, and Miley Cyrus’s It’s the Climb was playing. So very apt!

There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose
Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side
It’s the climb

Find your source of power!