The Ritual is the Cab

I have always admired Twyla Tharp. The day I saw Mikhail Baryshnikov in "Push Comes to Shove" when I was a teenager was a key day in my emotional and creative life. I admired how she was an insider and an outsider in the classical dance world and how she employed a new vocabulary of dance within the strict, strict rules of ballet.

One of my favorite books is her "The Creative Habit -- Learn It And Use It For Life." I've read tons of books about the writing process but this book sticks with me because she approaches the subject of how to create something, day after day, project after project, from a different art. She doesn't tell me to write a thousand words a day and go to writing conferences.

Early in the book she talks about rituals. She explains their power. She talks about how important it is for her to start her day by going to the gym. But she doesn't identify that as the key ritual for her -- the ritual is when she gets herself down to the sidewalk and tells a cab driver where she wants to go. "The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual."

I've been thinking about what the equivalent is for me. It's not sitting at my desk to write, because that doesn't happen everyday. It's not getting to the gym or to yoga, because that doesn't happen everyday either. But what do I do to help assure that those things happen more often than not? When I put it that way, the answer is easy.

I get up at 5:30 every morning and make tea (in a pot using loose leaf tea from India). I light a candle and sit and read for a little while. Right now, I have pictures of my grandmother with her family as a little girl and as a young married woman on my desk, because images from her life are rolling around in my mind for writing subjects.

By the time I finish the tea and read a chapter or two, I'm ready for what's next. Some days that means I just go fix my lunch (which means I will get to eat home-made food at lunch at work instead of processed purchased food), some days it means I go put on exercise clothes, and some days I go make another cup of tea (herbal this time to keep the caffeine under control) to keep the real day at bay a little bit longer.