The fruit of practice
Not long ago my friend Paola Corso, a poet and fiction writer, told me she wanted to set up a networking event for writers in our neighborhood. I’d love that, but I already go to too many meetings. When it came to it, I told her, I wasn’t sure I could drag myself out of the house on yet another night. I don’t even have children—Paola has two, young ones. And a job. And she already runs a writers’ series for our food coop.
I found myself singing the old refrain: “How do you do everything you do?” She rolled her eyes. “And write,” I added.
Her husband Michael Winks, a playwright, stood next to her. “We’ve been writers a lot longer than we’ve been parents,” she replied. “It’s in our blood.”
But I thought: no, it’s their practice. After years of doing, it becomes ingrained in mind and body, as necessary to the organism as eating, as routine as washing your hair. A meditation teacher once told me that at a certain point, sitting down to meditate becomes so fundamental that you don’t have to make time for it; you just do it. That’s when practice starts to bear its fruit.