Wendell Berry and Creative Fidelity

I have this quote from Wendell Berry over my desk. He is writing about creative fidelity and creative process. He says:

“…form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

If he is right then I am singing. I feel impeded today. I left the house this morning weighted with stones of sadness. My marriage ended to enter this relationship. Was that the right thing? Fall begins soon and I feel the pull of back to school. I love September and the newness of new knee sox and new notebooks. I want to feel new too. But this year I do not feel new. I feel confused and sad and worried. I question myself. I don’t know which way to go. So perhaps the real journey has begun and this odd sound coming from me is a kind of singing.