Finding Balance in Writing and Life
A Journalist’s Diary
I wasn’t expecting to find a link fitting my current situation when I scrubbed through my bookmarks in a recent digital tidy-up. It reminded me of the importance of steadiness in life and consistent progress in the things I care about the most. The novel approach in that essay links the act of writing with running.
Below, I’ll explore the idea of using running to achieve a more balanced life. Following that, I’ll share another observation journal entry, which I wrote during a recent photography trip. Finally, I’ll have thoughts on my short story progress.
Running to do the things you love
Planning my return to running, alongside thinking about my journalism why, was what made me open the link to The New Yorker’s The Running Novelist, a 2008 personal essay by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.
It’s a beautiful essay and demonstrates how one of the world’s greatest contemporary writers used running to shape his life. You’ll also learn about his bar-tending days, being overweight, and being a heavy smoker.
It was running that not only helped him to turn a health corner. It eliminated the clutter from his life and enabled him to focus on writing. A focused life, Murakami believes, is as important as organizing ideas and knowledge. In a world that seems to bombard us with information at ever-increasing speeds, it’s the ability to say no, to reduce what you do that leads to balance.
That’s a lifelong learning experience with ups and downs, with better and worse times.
But it works. When I think back to the times when my running was going really well — and I was the happiest, most focused runner — that was the time I felt the most balanced in life.
When I was happy as a runner, I was happy as a person. Now, let’s get back to that.
The abandoned pen
Shiny black and silver was its cheap plastic shell. If it had eyes, it would have seen the phone couple approaching the four-seater from its involuntary resting point on the trash bin lid that doubled as a small tray. The S-Bahn regional train only reluctantly filled up on this Wednesday afternoon. Bank holiday.
The two senior citizens sat down diagonally from each other, the woman in the direction of travel at the window, the man against the direction of travel at the aisle. They shared a healthy dose of similarities.
Their black jeans ended in white and gray trainers, respectively, that almost appeared to touch.
Both had gray hair with blackish elements, both with shorter and controlled styles. The similarities stopped with their jackets, however. His was black, hers a white and gray combination. Mr. Phone also sported elegant spectacles and a gray beard.
The similarities restarted on the behavioral side. Within seconds of sitting down, both glanced down at a shiny screen they held in their palms.
“Have you seen that?” he asked while rotating his device toward his wife.
“Yes, yes,” she replied nonchalantly while glancing at the screen that was presented to her.
Seconds later, both pairs of eyes were once again fixed on the screens nearest to them.
Mrs. Phone occasionally coughed gently. After each incident, her left hand refound the black handbag on her lap, which she used to prop up the phone.
I wondered if that ballpoint belonged to her. I wondered who came first: the pen or the couple.
When she stashed away the phone and rummaged around her bag only to put it down a moment later and glanced out the train’s window, he seemed to have received a silent signal. He put the phone away and started a short conversation that the train’s engines drowned out.
As my eyes returned from a group of noisy youngsters, which I could barely see from my seat, Mr. Phone lifted his left arm, and a thick and shiny metal box with orange accents lurked out of his sleeves. The rather distinctive watch quickly moved a few inches closer to its owner’s face for easier reading of the time.
My question about the pen’s origins was partially answered when the couple left it behind at the next stop.
He must have eyed the pen from the aisle already.
He was a man in his mid-twenties, entering the train moments after the couple had left and taking over their 4-seater.
He hadn’t been stationary for more than a few seconds when he grabbed the plastic click-mechanism pen and spun it with the fingers of his right hand.
“Click. Click,” I heard the pen echoing from the side as the man’s approving eyes stayed on the writing instrument, and his lips formed a slight smile.
He stashed the pen away even before the train’s doors had closed and started playing with his short beard with a satisfied look.
And as his eyes found the lifeless platform outside, the train kicked into motion, and the abandoned pen was abandoned no more.
On track despite organizational trouble
Short story progress has been a bit disrupted again.
But the relaxed order I created for my writing helps because I’m no longer losing my place in the process.
Even when I can’t squeeze in actual writing for a few days, I know what problem I have to tackle next, and the mental work continues.
Right now, I’m sorting through some computer headaches because I know that the aging machinery I rely on will eventually need replacing. But the writing project is with me. I know I have to flesh out those character sketches next, and ideas about how Jake and Cas’s marriage factor into the events come at the oddest moments, from autumnal photo walks and exercising to kitchen work and wrestling with software.
When I get back to writing, I’ll have a richly filled basket of ideas to work through, just as it should be.
That’s all the writing for this week. Next week, I’ll share updates on the digitization of my Ghana journal, open a new journalism chapter, and show you a calm river sunrise.
