Losing Time

I always love hearing new and different ways to describe someone's passion: passion for the arts, for music, for writing.

Yesterday on a t.v. program, I listened to Kristian Bush, one half of the country duo, Sugarland, talk about his passion for music and songwriting. He described his passion - and, any passion - as "losing time." So true! How many times have you just gotten lost when you're writing? Looked up and realized the day has passed, that you've forgotten to eat, to make that important phone call, or even to pay that important bill? Because during those hours, nothing feels as important as those sentences getting down on the page.

Kristian also compared that high -- that adrenaline we experience -- to those "first love" feelings. Those times in high school or college, when you stayed up late into the night with a new love, just talking. Absorbing everything about that other person. Every gesture, every nuance, every word. It's when we feel most alive, being in love. Happy things seem happier, sad things seem sadder. And yes, I think at the height of writing, we can experience some of that same euphoria. It can lift us out of this life we're in, if for a little while.

And then Kristian said something else. He said it so well, in fact, that instead of summing it up in my own words, I actually took the time to type it out on my i-Pad, word-for-word (not easy on that digital keyboard, lol). He said that passion "is where your brain bends time and space, and it says, 'This matters.' And your heart is alive."

It does matter, writing. And sometimes, when we're "in the zone," where clocks stop and time stands still, it seems to matter more than anything else.