A Writer's Vision - Barbara Jean Hicks

After a month away from the blog, I'm happy to be back doing what I love most: reading and writing. For the second time in the last six months I suffered a torn retina several weeks ago that required a surgeon's attention. Thankfully, this time I knew right away what was happening and got to the doctor soon enough that a quick laser treatment took care of the problem.

In order for the laser bond to scar and heal, however, I was required to limit any activity that might "jiggle" the eye--including reading or working at the computer, both of which require lots of eye movement. Yesterday my doctor lifted the restrictions. As you might imagine, I'm walking on air!

You might also imagine I've been thinking a lot about vision the last few months. The thought of going blind is frightening for anyone, but for someone who is a visual learner, who still (unbelievably!) has to look at the keyboard to type, and who aspires to create visual art as well as write, it's little short of terrifying. Again thankfully, I lost minimal range of vision, and I'm grateful every day for the vision that remains.

I'm grateful, too, that my forced hiatus from reading and writing, as well as many other activities, gave me an opportunity to think about vision in other ways than "the act or power of seeing with the eyes" (dictionary.com).

The second definition of "vision" on dictionary.com is "the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be." This second definition of vision is so important to artists of every kind. A work of art does not come into being without the artist's vision. That's not to say the artist always knows what the finished work of art will be. For seat-of-the-pantser writers like me, the act of writing often reveals my vision as I write. The key word is "reveal." The vision is there--part of what makes me who I am as a human and as an artist--but it is not always clear to me until I am in the middle of the process what that vision is.

Thinking of vision in this way reminds me that I don't need to know everything before I begin to write. In fact, I don't need to know ANYTHING before I begin to write. I just need to write. In a larger sense--thinking about my own life as a work of art--I don't need to know everything or anything before I begin to live. I just need to live! I need to pay attention. I need to bring my body, mind and emotions into full awareness of what's going on around and within me. I need to see, hear, smell, touch and taste the bounty of the natural world. I need to use my mind to think, to research, to reason. I need to be "soulful," to see and hear with my heart, to understand as much as is possible what lies in the hearts and minds of others. Living intentionally informs the vision that will reveal itself in my writing.

Since my doctor used the word "limited" rather than "forbidden" in regards to reading and writing, the two practices I allowed myself during the healing process were writing morning pages every morning and a rough draft of a poem every night. I recently read through the poetry to see if there might be any seeds for further writing, and it was interesting and informative to see the topics and themes that cropped up over and over again. As my eyes healed and my physical vision improved, in the silence of mind encouraged by my hiatus from the written word, my inner vision also became more clear. I'm excited to think about growing some of the seeds I've sown over the last few weeks into stories and finished poems.

May we all, as artists and humans, be blessed with visions for our life and work, and may those visions inspire us.